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Art & Religion 




Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, Architect. 



REREDOS • ST. THOMAS S CHURCH 
NEW YORK CITY 



Art & Religion 



By Von Ogden Vogt 




New Haven : Yale University Press 

London : Humphrey Milford : Oxford University Press 

Mdccccxxi 



-£ 






Copyright, 1921, by- 
Yale University Press 



DEC 19 1921 



©W.A654254 






TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER 

WHOSE MENTAL INTEREST KINDLED MINE 

AND TO MY MOTHER 



WHO IS A MYSTIC 

r 



Preface 

ONE puts forth any venture of constructive sugges- 
tion for these confused times only with the greatest 
diffidence, knowing far better than any critic can 
know the weaknesses and ignorances revealed. 

Yet there need be no diffidence about any fresh testimony 
that beauty is desirable and good : nor about the consequent 
contention that the religion of Protestantism stands pro- 
foundly in need of realizing it. This, together with some 
practical explications, is all I want to say to churchmen. 

To artists and lovers of the beautiful, I want to speak my 
definite expectation of a time soon to come again when 
patrons of the arts will see in the religious institution an 
incomparable opportunity for the most pervasive influence 
of beauty upon the people. Every church building in village 
or city should itself be a noble work of art. And the arts 
have each a proper place in the fostering of the supreme 
experience of worship. 

I am led to say these things by the very oppressive burden 
of disunity in the spiritual life of the community and the 
time. There cannot be an age of great artistic brilliance until 
we reach a more nearly harmonious faith. I am happy in the 
simple daily work of a parish minister. But I am unhappy 
and deeply disquieted amidst the discord in the religious 
world. I wish I could have mental fellowship with the 
Catholics : I wish I could have it with more of my Protestant 
brethren : not merely for the easement of my own aesthetic 
discomfort, but for the sake of countless others. There can 
be no cure for many souls until we are together. 

Inasmuch as many readers wish to know who it is who 
speaks of any matter, it is proper to state that I am the 
regularly installed pastor of a Congregational Church. Much 
of my feeling in things ecclesiastical is doubtless derived, 
however, from the Reformed Church in which I was bap- 

• ix • 



Preface 

tized and to which several American grandfathers belonged, 
as their fathers before them in the Swiss Church. 

The illustrations presented are taken mostly from the free 
churches. One expects an Episcopal Church to be beautiful 
and one looks for an altar in it. The noteworthy thing is the 
number of free churches which have revived the ancient 
setting for the communion table at the head of an apse or 
chancel. 

I wish gratefully to acknowledge much practical help 
from Miss Grace E. Babcock. For the loan or gift of photo- 
graphs, I am very pleasantly indebted to Messrs. Charles 
Collens, Ralph Adams Cram, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, 
the Society of Arts and Crafts, Detroit, ' and the Society of 
Arts and Crafts, Boston. 

Von Ogden Vogt. 

Wellington Avenue Church Study, 
February 25, 1921. 



Table of Contents 

I. Introduction ..... l 

Truth, goodness, and beauty. The new age. The close of the 
Reformation age. Protestant negation of the arts. Catholic 
acceptance of modernism. The art of worship the all-com- 
prehending art. Proposals for examining the connections of 
art and religion, historical, psychological, and practical. 
Proposals of liturgical principles and materials. Proposals 
for architectural style, tone, significance, and tendencies. 
Current writings about the new age. 

II. An Age Described by Its Art . . 9 

No satisfactory art in a nondescript age. The arts born of 
the national and time spirit. The relations of art to unified 
life. The youth, size, and complexity of American life. The 
coming description. 

III. The Unity of Religion and Art . . 18 

Religion the source of primitive arts. Religion the principal 
subject matter of historic art. The inner identity of the 
mystic and aesthetic experience. The demand for unity in 
composition and in reality. The feeling of satisfaction de- 
rived from beauty and from being. The creativity of art and 
of religion. 

IV. The Cleft between Art and Religion . 34 

1. The cleft between religion and science. 

2. The cleft between religion and morals. 

3. The cleft between religion and art. 

The Roman Mass. Catholic architecture. The Anglican 
Prayer Book. Protestant forms. American church architec- 
ture. 

•xi • 



Table of Contents 

V. The Mutual Need .... 48 

The world of the arts the source of spiritual life for many. 
The world of religion. Art needs religion — to universalize 
its concepts, to supply moral content. Religion needs the 
arts — to be impressive, to get a hearing, to be enjoyable, to 
assist reverence, to symbolize old truths, to heighten the 
imagination, to fire resolves. 

VI. Corporeality in Religion ... 56 

1. The corporeality of objects and acts. 

2. The corporeality of creeds. 

3. The corporeality of crude excitement. 

VII. The Sensational Character of Art . 63 

The sensational preacher. Modern view of human nature. 
Sensational conduct of ancient religious teachers. The sense 
appeal of the Japanese temple and of the English cathedral. 

VIII. A Brief for the Cultus ... 67 

Religious culture primary in religion. Its historical recogni- 
tion. Its apparatus or ritual. The necessity of religious acts. 
The source of perpetuity. The sermon an insufficient basis for 
religious culture. The background of change. Modern possi- 
bilities. 

IX. Prophet and Priest .... 82 

The conflict between reforming prophets and conserving 
priests. The prophet as instrument of change. The priest as 
Teacher, Spiritual Adviser, Pastor, and Artist. 

X. The Artist as Prophet ... 90 

Traditionalism preserved by the arts. The aloofness and law- 
lessness of artists. The historic divergence of artistic forms 
from their content, Egyptian, Greek, Italian. New ideas 
through the arts. The permanence of beauty. 

• xii • 



Table of Contents 

XL Symbols and Sacraments ... 97 

Classic and Romantic methods. Universality and power of 
symbols. Danger of symbols. Idolatry. The meaning of a 
sacrament. The spiritual presence. The material elements. 
Baptism and the Eucharist. Objective value and validity. 
Transubstantiation of persons. 

XII. Religious Education . . .107 

Observing beauty. Modern religion weakly impressive. The 
power of ritual. Worship in the church school. Children in 
the church service. Adult education in religion. Theological 
schools deficient in religious culture. The state university and 
the Christian college. 

XIII. Church Unity . . . .116 

Difficulties of unity in thought and action. The unifying 
effects of feeling. The desire for more inclusive religious 
experience. The incompleteness of separate types. The serv- 
ice of art in promoting unity. The revival of mediaevalism, 
liturgically and architecturally. The community church. 
The flank attack in debate. Universal similarity of mystic 
experiences. 

XIV. Technique and Freedom . . . 133 

The positive character of freedom. Futility of complete inde- 
pendency. The incoherence of liberalism. The necessity for 
critically improved technique in worship. A new service 
book. Scholarship in liturgies. Ceremonial. Freedom not the 
gift of formlessness but the mastery of form. 

XV. The Mysticism of Isaiah . . 145 

The identity of the experience of worship and that of beauty. 
The elements of the experience: vision, humility, exalta- 
tion, illumination, dedication. Isaiah's great record. 

XVI. The Order of the Liturgy . 152 

Outer expression in the order of worship parallel to the ele- 
ments of the inner experience of worship. The principal 

• xiii • 



Table of Contents 

liturgical parts. Dramatic unity. Miss Underbill's analysis 
of the Mass. The need for experiment. 

XVII. Introit and Antiphons . . .166 

The revival of the Introit. Materials for it. Process of ideas 
in it. Copies of antiphonals used at the Wellington Avenue 
Church. 

XVIII. Music 174 

Music the highest art. The unity of the service. Faults of 
anthems. The matrix of the service. Members of the choir 
as ministers in the sanctuary. Antiphonals. Especially com- 
posed services. 

XIX. Architectural Style . . .180 

Sketch of Greek, Roman, Romanesque, Byzantine, Gothic, 
and Renaissance building, together with meanings inti- 
mated by these historic styles. Current style revivals in 
Gothic and Classic strains. The question of style revival or 
translation. The new architecture. 

XX. Structural Tone .... 203 

Tonal effects of interiors. The faults of neutrality, comfort- 
ableness, coldness, agitation. The virtues of repose, austerity, 
warmth, and brilliance. The effects of proportion, scale, and 
materials. 

XXL The Chancel . . . .214 

The historic Christian Church chancel. Its revival amongst 
non-liturgical churches. The artistic high light, the differen- 
tiation of liturgical parts, practical convenience. Recent 
opinions. The use of altar and candle light. Ineffective com- 
promises. Adaptability of the chancel. 

XXII. Practicable Matters . . . 229 

Educational and social facilities of the church building. 
Placement of the structure. Problems of the smaller church. 

• xiv • 



Table of Contents 

Partial construction. The aesthetic character of practica- 
bility. 

XXIII. Religious Ideas for the Architect . 236 

A House of God. A House of Man. A House of Salvation. 
The intimations of modern free thinking, brotherhood, and 
art. 

XXIV. The Future Church . . .243 

The delimitation of church functions. Integrations of the 
new age. The mergence of historic faith and natural religion, 
in the Apostolic age, in the coming age. A time of formation. 
Truth, Goodness, Beauty. The primary category. Survey of 
the character of the coming cultus. Christian content in 
ancient categories. 

Appendix ...... 252 

Orders of service in the Wellington Avenue Church, 
Chicago. 

Index ....... 257 



xv 



List of Illustrations 

Reredos, St. Thomas's Church, New York . frontispiece 

PAGE 

Pulpit, First Baptist Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- 
vania ...... 

First Church in Cheshire, Connecticut . 

Carved Oak Triptych .... 

Silver Crozier; Christmas in Heaven; St. Peter 

Skinner Memorial Chapel, Holyoke, Massachusetts 

Silver Alms Basin; Altar Cross in Silver, Ivory, and 
Enamel ; Carved and Gilded Candlestick . 

First Baptist Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 
Second Church in Boston, Massachusetts . 



21 

43 

79 

95 
123 

141 

193 
209 
219 



House of Hope, St. Paul, Minnesota, Presbyterian 

South Church, New York City, Reformed 

Second Church in Newton, Massachusetts, Congrega- 
tional ....... 225 

St. Anne's Chapel, Arlington Heights, Massachusetts 231 

First Congregational Church, Montclair, New Jersey 237 

Second Church in Boston, Massachusetts, Unitarian . 247 



xvi 



Art & Religion 



Chapter I : Introduction 

IT would seem that humanity permanently values truth, 
goodness, and beauty. These values are essential to reli- 
gion. But there is a cleft between the popular religion 
of our day and all these three. There are many persons 
engaged in healing the breach between religion and science ; 
equally many concerned with a new ethical seriousness in 
religion; few seem to be aware of the cleft between religion 
and art. 

A new age is coming. It will be upon us swiftly and we 
must bestir our imaginations to prepare for it. We are like 
the dwellers in the war-swept areas of the old world whose 
homes were wrecked by shell fire. Our intellectual houses are 
falling about our ears. We do not yet know whether we must 
rebuild them or desert them. We are hurriedly wondering 
what to save from the wreckage. We are half unconsciously 
taking stock of our valuables; making new appraisals of 
what is most precious. It is a time of reexamination of all 
things, a time of changes, profound and universal. The dis- 
organization of normal life by the great war has compelled 
a new openness of mind and roused new demands for better 
life. 

Yet it is not the war experience that is causing the new 
age. It hastens it; it more rapidly closes the old age; it will 
perhaps in history mark the end of a period about ready to 
be ended anyway. The breakdown of many old sanctions and 
standards was already taking place. The crisis of war if not 
the agent was the powerful reagent, precipitating that which 
the old formulas could no longer hold in solution. 

These values that we are reappraising, these formulas 
that are breaking down, what are they'? In the main they 
are the work of the Reformation age. We have been living 
religiously and morally and politically by the premises and 
forms of thought established by the Reformation. This does 



Art & Religion 

not mean that these principles have been accepted by all or 
that they are now to be entirely displaced. It does mean that 
Reformation assumptions have quite generally wrought 
themselves into all departments of human life, that their 
logic is fairly complete, and that it is now time to estimate 
their success and failure. 

The new premises, sanctions, and standards, whence are 
they*? They are largely the effects of nineteenth century 
science and mechanics, both negative and positive. We do 
not know exactly what they are, nor shall we until they are 
half consciously established in practice. They relate to 
changed conceptions of individualism and freedom, author- 
ity, property, education, human nature, liberty, art. These 
and other interests are to be differently conceived than in 
the period under Reformation dominance. Science is not 
alone the sufficient cause of these transformations. It is 
rather the efficient cause, the force that will break much 
remaining mediaevalism, confirm the central Reformation 
Protest and then displace both Protestant and Catholic 
sanctions, preparing the way for the positive work of new 
forces in philosophy, popular morality, art, and religion. 

The Reformation age is being effectively closed by the 
work of nineteenth century science, its close marked by the 
upheaval of war. But the new age will not be predominantly 
scientific. Science has displayed, negatively, what it cannot 
do for human life as well as what it can do. Approved scien- 
tific method will go forward to be one of the major instru- 
mentalities of the new good. But art will be another major 
instrumentality. Both will be agents in forming the new age 
after the desires of life itself, that human experience of uni- 
versal life which we call religion and which alone is the 
sufficient cause of human good. 

A new age is never an entire break with the past. It car- 
ries forward from the immediate past much that does not 
logically belong with the new forms. It carries forward from 
the more remote past much that is still more out of harmony 
with the new forms. And it restores some things from the 
distant past more useful and valued in the new age than 
they were in the immediately previous one. Feelings and 



Introduction 

forces are swept out of notice, even for long periods, which 
later come back freshly to benefit and balance human life. 
One of these feelings is the feeling for beauty, one of these 
forces is the force of artistry. 

The Reformation age has not been favorable to the arts. 
Protestantism has been chary of the arts and suspicious of 
the artist. Ancient and mediaeval feeling for beauty has been 
all but extinguished throughout large bodies of Christians. 
It is coming back, irresistibly and swiftly. I am all too un- 
happily aware that mediaeval ecclesiastics will say: I told 
you so : you should never have left us : give the Protestants 
time and they will all return to the fold. Nothing could be 
more greatly in error than so to estimate our new interest in 
beauty. Mediaeval ecclesiasticism, incompatible alike with 
the noble morality and the progressively democratic politics 
of the Reformation age, will be utterly alien to the new 
age. It is an all but unbelievable tragedy that the old 
churches still refuse to hear the great Protest, the very 
while that children of the Reformers are beginning to see 
the good things their fathers swept away together with the 
bad. 

There would be no question about the coming of a new 
and glorious age if the older churches might honestly try 
to understand the claims of the free churches, and if the 
reformed churches might with equal candor survey their 
faults and weaknesses. We cannot enter upon a great con- 
structive time without bold, disinterested, and imaginative 
effort on the part of religious leaders to these ends. We can- 
not enter the new age until the old churches give up their 
concepts of an authoritative faith "once delivered to the 
saints" and freely accept the spirit of modernism: nor until 
the rank and file of the free churches do the same thing, as 
their leaders have already done. 

And this effort must begin at home. It is time for every 
churchman to realize that his particular sect is insufficient 
for the brilliant life of the new age. Others have examined 
it and found it wanting. It will do little good for Protestants 
to lay all the blame upon the Catholics or upon each other. 
There is needed a rigorous attempt amongst all Protestant 



Art & Religion 

faiths to reestimate the essentials of religious life, and to 
acknowledge how many of these are found in the old church, 
and how many are lacking in the common American denomi- 
national parish. 

In a general way, the great lack of Protestantism is not 
intellectual nor moral but artistic, not ethical but cultural. 
In the pioneer and commercial stages of American life this 
lack has not been so noticeable or unfortunate. For the most 
part those who have recognized the severance of art from 
religion are chiefly persons who have felt the ungodliness of 
art rather than the ugliness of religious forms. With the 
growth of cities and city planning, the rapid improvement 
in the popular arts, including architecture, and the advanc- 
ing brilliance of civilized life the church must keep pace. 

Beauty is one of the essential necessities of human exist- 
ence. It is a strange fact that so few of those who are critical 
of the church from without or anxious within have taken 
notice of this lack. For several years now, both the religious 
and secular press have been exercised over the church. Many 
have attacked the theology or the ethics of the church, few 
have openly criticised its meager worship. Many experiments 
have been proposed and many tried, few have touched upon 
the untold assets of the world of the arts for the cultivation 
of that spiritual life which is the prime function of the 
church. 

The art of worship is the all-comprehending art. No other 
art can satisfy the demand of human nature for an all-inclu- 
sive experience. Nor can the conditions favorable to that 
experience be ever freshly reproduced without the aid of all 
the arts. 

The suggestions which are hereinafter set forth might pos- 
sibly have better been arranged for three books, except that 
at this time it is desirable to feel the close relationships 
involved. If architects are to build successful church build- 
ings, they must know more about the requirements of the 
worship to be conducted in those buildings. If the artist in 
worship is to be successful, he must know how to set forth 
his message architecturally as well as liturgically. If worship 
is to be considered as a great art, there needs to be in the 



Introduction 

mind of Protestantism in general a new point of view re- 
specting both the history and the possibilities of religious 
culture. The material to follow, therefore, covers these three 
things : first, historical, psychological, or polemical matters ; 
second, liturgies; third, architecture. 

The first group of chapters attempts to make some contri- 
bution to the polemics of the day respecting the church Jn 
the new' age. The attempt is born of a deep sense of need 
for a new popular psychology about the essential religious 
values. We need to reexamine the practical categories of 
organized religion. We need to enquire whether the ecclesias- 
tical institution should not function primarily, not for the 
sake of theology, nor merely as a moral program, but to 
foster the religious experience. 

This group opens with a discussion of the connection of 
art with the time spirit or national spirit of any people. 
Next, the historical and psychological connections and dis- 
connections of religion and art, and their mutual need are 
set forth. This is followed by chapters indicating the normal 
connection of art with the priestly and cultural side of reli- 
gion rather than its prophetic and moral side. The close of 
the division shows the connection of art with current church 
movements. 

The necessity for technique in worship opens the brief 
liturgical discussion. In this area of liturgies there are only 
two important suggestions to be presented. After an exami- 
nation of the nature of the inner experience of worship in 
the chapter "Isaiah's Mysticism," the findings are in the 
next chapter applied to the problems of the order of worship. 
There is stated definitely what I believe to be the only sound 
principle of liturgical construction. The other suggestion in 
this department is a detailed proposal for improving the 
opening part of the ordinary church service by the revived 
usage of the Introit. 

These brief chapters constitute, of course, a very incom- 
plete discussion of the subject. Other books are needed, 
which will present more comprehensive reports and propo- 
sals concerning modern liturgies. These will be forthcoming 
as improved experimentation proceeds. The definite sugges- 



Art & Religion 

tions of these chapters, however, are sufficient to specify 
something of the nature of the task involved in the better 
development of the religious cultus. 

Respecting architecture, it has seemed advisable to begin 
with an extremely short survey of the historic styles, familiar 
as the history of architecture may be to many persons. Only 
so, however, is it possible clearly to present even a brief 
analysis of the meaning of style and of the special intima- 
tions of particular historic modes. There is just now a great 
deal of unintelligent style revival, and also much groping 
after new stylistic invention. The chapter discusses this 
situation. Other chapters relate to practical phases of church 
building; the modern religious ideas which need to be sym- 
bolized in the modern church ; and the handling of physical 
materials to the end of producing the desired atmosphere or 
structural tone in the building. The facts presented in the 
chapter on the chancel, together with their illustration, are 
largely unknown either to the church world or to the 
architectural world. 

These suggestions are written for the attention of archi- 
tects as well as for church building committees and for 
people who wish to enrich their powers of appreciation. If 
I did not know the facts to the contrary, I should be inclined 
to credit the architectural profession with competency in 
these matters. There are brilliant leaders who have thought 
deeply upon the intellectual issues involved in church 
building, and whose canons of art are of the highest order. 
This exceptional ability, however, has not yet succeeded 
in forestalling the construction of many hopelessly ugly 
churches. It is hoped, also, that the chapters may be of 
practical assistance to the competent architect in his efforts 
to persuade building committees to the acceptance of more 
excellent forms. 

The book is not a defence of beauty or of art; they will 
take care of themselves. It is not so certain that the art of 
worship will take care of itself. The art of worship is the 
combination of all the arts ; the experience of worship is the 
consummation of all experience, whether of beauty or of 
goodness or of truth. The book is an effort to assist the Teli- 

• 6- 



Introduction 

gious world to a recognition of the category of beauty as a 
primary and necessary element in the religious reconstruction 
of the new age. 

I am well aware that it is talking high talk to use the term 
"new age," and that the term is being used by many, inde- 
finably and loosely. But in the thought of many other stu- 
dents of history, the issues of the day in all departments of 
life are of such a character as to warrant the use of the words, 
with a definite meaning. Although I do not agree with the 
historical interpretations or the philosophic assumptions of 
Mr. Ralph Adams Cram, his insistence at this point is illumi- 
nating. "History is a series of resurrections, for the rhythm 
of change is invariable. Each epoch of five hundred years 
follows the same monotonous course, though made dis- 
tinctive by new variations. . . . We are today in the midst 
of just such a grinding collapse as that which overtook Rome 
and the empire of Charlemagne and the Christian Common- 
wealths of the Middle Ages. . . . Before the year 2000, 
now but two generations away, modern civilization will 
have passed and a new era have taken its place."* 

Before the war, the late Professor Charles R. Henderson 
wrote : "We are now in the midst of a transformation more 
significant than the downfall of the Roman Empire, the rise 
of modern nationalities, or the Reformation." In a lecture 
on architecture, Mr. Claude Bragdon used this phrase: 
"During the post-Renaissance or the Scientific period, of 
which the war probably marks the close."f Mr. Alfred H. 
Lloyd in his paragraphs on "The Glory of Democracy" 
expresses the same view. "A time of epochal transition! 
Truly we are nearing something new in life. A time of crea- 
tive living must be at hand." 

The most recent definition of the nature of present-day 
change, in the light of the historic sweep of human feelings, 
is that of Professor Albert Parker Fitch. "We are witnessing 
in fact the final emancipation, or if you please, defection, of 
society from the enchantment of the Middle Ages. ... If 
the political, ethical, economic and aesthetic interests of man 

* Cram, "Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh," pp. 2 and 3. 
t Architectural Record, September, 1918. 



Art & Religion 

are changing, it is safe to assume that his religious world is 
being transformed too."* 

These and other writers have each a somewhat differing 
interpretation of the meaning of the times. They all agree 
in expressing the long historic power of the Reformation 
forces, the unsatisfactory character of their practical out- 
come, and the necessity for new integrations of life so far- 
reaching in character as to constitute a similarly forceful 
historic movement. 

I am not presuming to estimate all the factors material 
to the new construction of life, but only one of them. In the 
new age, religion will have new things to say and a new 
burden of utterance seeking to say them. It will be keyed to 
the discovery of new forms for telling its word to people. If 
it does not, it will not reach people. In the world of the arts 
it will find the means for its new creative and re-creative life. 
In the experience of worship it will center the joys of its new 
faiths in human nature and its new hopes of divine life. In 
the better development of the art of worship it will fulfil its 
function of lifting life out of its ugly materialism onward 
and upward toward the truth and the goodness and the 
beauty that is to be. 

* Fitch, "Can the Church Survive in the Changing Order 1 ?" pp. 26 and 43. 



8- 



Chapter II : An Age Described by Its Art 

WE are just now so accustomed to looking at 
everything from the point of view of peoples, 
tribes, and nations that it is natural to begin 
our notice of the arts from the same point of view. Peoples 
are known by their art, the English by Shakespeare and the 
Prayer Book, the Greeks by the Parthenon, the American 
Negro by his folk melodies. So also we know an age by its 
art, the mediaeval time by the great Gothic buildings, the 
artificialities of early eighteenth century life by English 
poems and French palaces, the Classic revival by the Renais- 
sance buildings of Italy and all Europe ; and all the greater 
and lesser movements of human feeling by their records in 
stone or letters or music. 

The arts constitute the description of the world as an age 
or a people apprehends it. The spiritual life of a time is 
depicted with unescapable exactness in its artistry. A spirit- 
ual movement that does not find expression in the arts can- 
not attain self -consciousness or dominance or survival. An 
age or a people that does not reach any self-realization or 
any unity of thought or feeling that breaks forth into artis- 
tic expression is nondescript. 

Three little objects in my study signify what I mean. One 
is a katchina of the Hopi Indians of Arizona, a small grass 
mat with the woven figure of an air spirit arrayed in head- 
dress and apron. One is a little brass tray with the beautiful 
geometric pattern of stars in parallel lines so typical of 
Saracenic art. The third is a little Catholic image of Santa 
Barbara from Brittany. You could take up one of these little 
objects and describe almost offhand the main characteristics 
of the life from which it came, as a scientist reconstructs 
some old dinosaur from one of the fossil bones. You could 
conjure, for instance, the whole structure of fatalism in 
philosophy, despotism in government, the abstract decora- 



Art & Religion 

tion, the polygamy, and everything else from beggar to 
caliph that belonged in the same world with the little piece 
of brass : and also the faiths, feelings, institutions, and cus- 
toms that belong with the descriptions of the universe of 
which the others are symbols. Trifling as the little objects 
are, no such thing is ever produced in any nondescript com- 
monwealth. Each has been cast up from a sea of human life, 
wide and deep, of which it is, so to speak, only a fleck of 
foam left to remind us of the tossing waters of many souls. 
Sorry indeed is that citizenship and weak of mind the 
generation which cannot leave behind even so slight a mark 
or sign to testify its struggle for faith or describe its hope. 

Or we may come at the idea by another more familiar 
route. One of the most early and simple of the promptings 
which lead people to travel to foreign parts is an interest in 
the picturesque. Partly childish, the interest is also pro- 
found. It is the pleasure of discovering communities that are 
descript rather than nondescript — Oberammergau, Bangkok, 
Oxford, Kioto, or any other place where there has been some 
sustained attempt to describe all things and set forth the 
common view in laws, customs, and all the arts of life from 
house building to worship. One does not like to see among 
the maidens at a well in the old land of Ephraim that some 
carry water in the tall earthern jars of ancient mould and 
some in the huge tins of an American oil company. It spoils 
the picture. The charm, the unity, the satisfaction are gone. 
One does not wish to go abroad unless he may return and 
say: This is the way the Romans do; thus and so it is among 
the Fijis. And some people when they find such a place of 
unity and charm do not come again home to their own 
nondescript life and town. 

Art is not something detached from life: it makes life 
and is made by it. It appears in every age and represents to 
us the life of which it is a part. "The artist or the philoso- 
phizer who maintains that art is purely a temperamental ex- 
pression unrelated to the solid facts of life, ... is cherishing 
a fatal illusion."* If that life is disjointed, the arts will be 
sporadic and weak. If there be no real structure of ideas and 

* Pond, "The Meaning of Architecture," p. 105. 

• 10- 



An Age Described by Its Art 

customs, no faiths that dominate and unify, no society that 
is describable, how shall it be described to its own or any 
other mind? If the life of a people or a time does not present 
any strong lines or clear characteristics, how shall it be repre- 
sented? In fitful fragments surely. 

I do not mean to say that any society has ever become so 
unified that its leading feelings have dominated all. Rebels, 
prophets, protestants, are in every time and place, but if 
they are in the majority, the community is nondescript and 
the voices of the arts are mute, for they have no great thing 
to say. 

A seeming contrary opinion has been expressed. "Art must 
be democratic and win its own clientele of free admirers; 
it must never again be a mere outgrowth of an authorita- 
tively united community spirit. It must serve as one of the 
main paths to the future and the unborn."* The word 
"authoritatively" is unfortunate. Modern men do not desire 
an art that is the outgrowth of any formal mandate; but 
they do desire the kind of united community spirit which 
both produces great art and is produced by it. "All great 
periods of art have been but the expression of their time. 
Art has come after the event, not its avatar, but its fulfiller, 
not its prophet, but its message."f 

We shall wish later to notice the value of the artist as 
prophet of change, with a free and individual word; but 
also his word is born of the spirit of his people and time. 
There is a timeless and universal appeal in the greatest arts, 
yet Dante was a Florentine, and the destroyed sculptured 
figures of Rheims could not have been carved in the age of 
Pericles. So also do the little arts follow the time or society 
spirit. The dainty chairs of the salons of Versailles were not 
fashioned in Salem, Massachusetts. 

The noblest art does not expend itself in trifles; it at- 
tempts to speak something concerning all things, to utter 
some intimation of the total human faith about God and 
man as it is most lately and highly conceived. The most 
significant and wonderful of such intimations have come, 

♦Hocking, "Human Nature and Its Remaking," note, p. 318. 

t Herbert Adams, "Address before American Academy of Design." 

•11 - 



Art & Religion 

not as lone, exceptional voices, but rather as a sweeping 
wave of human feeling rising to a crest and breaking forth 
into manifold and beautiful expression. This social char- 
acter of the arts is testified both by critics and by the 
facts. "The expression of an ideal is possible because and 
when and only when, that ideal dominates the race."* Not 
personal dreams but the hopes of a nation breathe through 
the Psalms: the genius that dotted the isles of Greece with 
majestic temples was a racial intelligence : not few but many 
builders, driven by the fusing fires of a powerful time spirit, 
hurried up the walls of the great thirteenth century churches 
in France and Flanders. Even respecting the works of 
Michel Angelo, certainly as much a lone and individual 
artist as ever lived, it is said that "We do not think of these 
great creations as works of individual genius only, but as 
nourished and inspired by tides of contemporary thought 
and emotion. Their agitation is the agitation of a century."f 
It is suggested of another great Italian artist, Virgil, not 
that he spoke his own word only, but that he was the "Latin 
that should voice the saddened grandeur of the Pagan 
heart. "J In certain times and places, human life has been 
possible of description. Some conjunction of racial tempera- 
ment, stage of reflective thought, economic stability, and 
what not other less discoverable factors, has produced a 
unity of life. The artists of the age have described the 
essence of that life. 

No age is, of course, wholly under the sway of its domi- 
nant notes. Usually something less than its best is in the 
ascendant: often rival faiths contend for the mastery of a 
race : or a strong minority long sustains its illogical footing : 
or the time is wholly discordant and nondescript. Our 
American world would appear to be not much better off 
than this latter case. We are very far from such unity of 
mind and manners as prevailed in the Florence of Lorenzo, 
the England of Elizabeth, or in Moorish Spain. We are too 
large, too new, and too composite in race and religion to 
have reached a describable unity in life. 

* Pond, "The Meaning of Architecture," p. 39. 

f Phillipps, "Art and Environment," p. 264. 

X Taylor, "The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages." 

• 12- 



An Age Described by Its Art 

Most of the great historic commonwealths, where life has 
become refined, customs prevalent, and loyalty so long 
centered as at last to be celebrated in song and ritual or 
symbolized in the other arts, were small states — Judea, 
Athens, Byzantium, He de France, Nippon. In these little 
groups of human beings, their solution of the great mysteries 
became so ordered and so intense as at last to form itself 
into the imperishable crystalline deposit of their arts, and 
thereby we know them and revere them. Our country is so 
large as to postpone whatever unity is desirable. In the 
North and South, in mountain land and plain land, the 
flavor of personality and temperament varies with the flavor 
of the speech of the people. The ease of communication and 
movement helps us to overcome this natural difficulty — but 
much more help shall we have as we learn to utilize every 
artistic symbol of our common life, for the arts which unity 
produces turn about to produce more unity. 

And we are too young to be formed to a common mould. 
Young communities have no time for good form. Good form 
is taken on gradually, always the mark of an older and more 
settled life. But it is a great blunder to underestimate its 
power or disbelieve in the certainty of its appearance. The 
usages of polite as contrasted with frontier society are much 
the same the world over. Pioneers have always scoffed at 
forms and their grandchildren have rushed upon them with 
avidity; perhaps the earlier generation mistaking crudity for 
sincerity, the younger equally mistaking manners for cul- 
ture. Later generations learn the economy of energy realized 
in relegating to forms many things that do not need con- 
stantly to be freshly decided, and the easement of life's 
harshness and jar by the dependable respect that resides in 
good form. There is no older society that does not value good 
form and the church world is no exception to the rule. 

Racial recollection is long, racial aversions and sym- 
pathies are often intense. "Because of a diversity of our 
origins and ideals a unification of our society must be a long 
time — perhaps centuries — in coming."* Although there are 
common grounds of expectation and purpose on which most 

* Pond, "The Meaning of Architecture," p. 225. 

•13- 



Art & Religion 

of the races mingling here stand together, — and this is our 
hope, — there are also inherited differences in the sense of 
values. If the Scotchman admits that he is bluff but honest, 
perhaps a Latin will make reply that he does not care for 
honesty so much as he cares for suavity. This is a sheer 
difference in the estimate of human goods ; and with a thou- 
sand others must be reconciled in some larger unity of com- 
mon idealism. We have valued the moral integrity and 
industrial energy of the northern races as the foundation of 
our commonwealth. Surely there are also some virtues and 
values in the imaginative gifts of the southern peoples and 
in their deliberate preference for some other enjoyments 
than those of commercial victory. Some of the forces neces- 
sary to the interracial development lie in the realm of the 
arts we are discussing. 

The religious disunity of America is notorious. It is 
intolerable as a permanent condition. No useful good is 
longer served by it. It has ceased to function as a guarantee 
of liberty. The deepest cleft is between those faiths which 
are authoritative and autocratic and those which are meas- 
urably compatible with democratic institutions. A "divine 
right" kind of church calls for a "divine right" state. Aristo- 
cratic religion cannot permanently live in the same world 
with democratic government. One must at last give way to 
the dominating unity of the other. 

Less dramatic, but probably, therefore, the more difficult 
is the Protestant diversity. Most of the differences have been 
intellectual, creedal. On the upper levels, these are now all 
cut across by the unity of modern thought. The theological 
lectures at Union in New York, at Congregational Yale, at 
Episcopal Cambridge, at Methodist Garrett and at Baptist 
Chicago are all in the same intellectual world. On the lower 
levels, the old separations still persist. Some leaders look for 
progress toward unity by ignoring intellectual differences 
and seeking the fellowship of common moral effort. This is 
indeed worth while and partly possible. But only partly, for 
some of the creedal differences involve such opposite moral 
ideals as entirely to block practical unity until the intel- 
lectual breach is at least narrowed. 

.14. 



An Age Described by Its Art 

Meanwhile there remain deep diversities of tempera- 
ment, varieties of religious experience in the realm of feel- 
ing. It has often been said that men differ widely in this 
region, that some require the appeal of form and ritual, some 
desire a minimum of feeling and a maximum of thinking in 
their religion, as others enjoy the warmer exercises of a more 
primitive emotionalism. I believe that such a view is a false 
estimate of human nature and suggested largely as a piece 
of special pleading for the separate maintenance of these 
types of religious expression. 

The truer fact is that we have all of us something of all 
these needs. Most people prefer what they have been accus- 
tomed to in these things and could likely have been bred 
to enjoy far other usages than they do. The differences of 
breeding, training, or circumstance account for varied prefer- 
ences in artistry much more commonly than do differences 
in original temperament. Simple persons of little education 
are not effectively moved by appeal that is largely intel- 
lectual. They require the stronger feeling values of direct 
emotionalism or of ritual. More education draws away from 
strong emotion of any sort and demands satisfactions of the 
mind chiefly. Yet more culture begins to revalue lost feeling 
and to seek it in the world of the arts. 

Whoever desires to foster religious unity must take large 
account of the essential unity of human nature in its de- 
mand for feeling. It is possible that a study of the artistry of 
religion, a study of the pleasures and the driving power of 
the emotive faculties, an analysis of the kinds of formal 
technique that create emotion, will be quite as valuable for 
the cause of religious unity as the attempt to get together 
theologically or morally. 

When our nation is older, and when our differences of 
race and religion are less numerous and less sharp, the arts 
will expand to the proportionate place they must always 
occupy in the spiritual life of any great race or any descript 
people. We shall be no longer nondescript, but everywhere 
there will be evidence of the ideals which dominate our 
common life. Already American unity has been remarkably 
strengthened by the common action necessitated in the war. 

•15- 



Art & Religion 

But the unifying equivalent of war is not easy to find in 
time of peace. 

And the unifying effect of isolation will never again pre- 
vail in human life. Swiftly all the old descript common- 
wealths are breaking down before the all-inclusive world 
economy in which we are beginning to live. No race can 
again form so separate a culture and artistry as that of Siam 
or Japan. The world is one as never before. And it is non- 
descript as never before. Common knowledge everywhere 
modifies peculiarities and diminishes differences in race, reli- 
gion, and politics. This is partly the cause of the bewilder- 
ment among artists. They do not know what to say or how 
to say it any more than do theologians or senators. They do 
not live, any more than the rest of us, surrounded by definite 
and definable customs. We are all more or less cosmopolitans 
and come dangerously near not "belonging" anywhere. We 
are rovers and strangers, scarcely having a true spiritual 
homeland. 

All these things are admitted and they constitute new and 
difficult conditions for civilized life. Yet to recognize them 
is partly to master them. The human race is not yet ready 
to merge into one vast, vague composite. Nor are states and 
nations about to disappear in some universal hegemony. 

Americans believe that there is a future life and greatness 
for their commonwealth. We are engaged in the gigantic 
process of self -consciousness. A rich and noble content is 
already suggested by the term Americanism. That content 
will be enlarged and specified rapidly or slowly according as 
we foster our own best ethics and according as we seek spir- 
itual greatness to match our material success. No mere con- 
quests of the foreign markets for steel will make us a descript 
people. But every victory over prejudice and ignorance, 
every success in our labors for economic justice, every newer 
and later solution of vexed problems in brotherhood, every 
restraint and lift in the scale of pleasure will weave itself 
into the pictured scroll which to ourselves and to all men 
describes what we think and feel and purpose about life. 
With the gathering unity in ethics will come increased 
clarity and brilliance in the arts. And the richer expression 

•l6. 



An Age Described by Its Art 

of the arts will in turn promote and establish the common 
will until America in the new age may become a civilization 
describable and described as never a life was described 
before. 



17 



Chapter III : The Unity of Religion and Art 

ART and religion belong together by identities of 
/_\ Origin, Subject Matter, and Inner Experience. 
± V Religion and art were one and the same thing be- 
fore either of them became consciously regarded as a dis- 
tinct human interest. The principal subject matter of the 
world's artistic treasures is religious. The experience of faith 
and the experience of beauty are in some measure identical. 
In these three ways there is displayed the unity of religion 
and art. I am not here interested to elaborate them, but the 
numbers of religious leaders who have no interest in the arts, 
and the numbers of artists who have no participation in the 
life of definite religion need all to be made aware of these 
facts. 

The beginnings of religion and of art alike lie far back 
and hidden in the immemorial life of primitive man. In 
the earliest historic times they were interwoven and no one 
can say which was first, for they were not two, but one. The 
painted stick or bunch of feathers which as a fetish was 
utilized for its magical powers was also in some sense a work 
of art. The dances and pantomimes of early tribal life were 
attempts at the magical control of nature or nature divini- 
ties. Exercises in frenzy were both religious and artistic, 
primitive forms of ritual, primitive forms of drama. "This 
common emotional factor it is that makes art and ritual in 
their beginnings well-nigh indistinguishable."* 

Religion has been historically the great fountain source 
of art, and the art of worship the mother of all arts. "Ritual 
and art have, in emotion towards life, a common root, and 
primitive art develops emotionally, at least in the case of 
drama, straight out of ritual. "f 

It is sufficient for our purpose to accept the judgment of 
anthropologists that in one way or another most of the 

* Jane Harrison, "Art and Ritual," p. 41. 
■\Ibid. 

•l8. 



The Unity of Religion and Art 

arts — music, dancing, sculpture, poetry, drama, architecture 
— were developed out of exercises and objects originally de- 
vised for the magical control of divinities, the celebration of 
seasonal feasts or the production of ecstasy for its own sake 
or for power in war — all exercises of primitive religion. 

"Art will then never arise and develop among men un- 
less it has a foundation in religion. Art absolutely profane 
in origin, art born to satisfy the aesthetic taste of the specta- 
tor, art which seeks for expressiveness rather than for the 
material utility of its products, even if this be a spiritual 
utility, is inconceivable in human history and has abso- 
lutely never existed."* 

This is perhaps a too sweeping claim, but something very 
like it is true. An adequate discussion of it would involve a 
long study not enough pertinent to our present work to 
make. It is difficult for us with our reflective and analytical 
habits of mind to throw back our imaginations into the 
early time when life was just life, single and undivided, 
without religion or art or any other category as such. It is 
not impossible that such a unity of experience is a goal 
ahead of us as well as a forgotten history behind us. 

The second consideration in noting the unity of religion 
and art is the fact that in all human history the principal 
subject matter of the arts has been religious. 'All the art 
of the human race is essentially religious art; from the 
Chaldean to the Egyptian, from the Mycenaean to the 
Greek, from the Assyrian to the pre-Buddhistic Chinese, 
from the Mexican to the Peruvian, there is no exception." f 

The three things which most attract Americans to cross 
the sea in search of the riches of the old world are the Greek 
temples and statues, Italian paintings, and Gothic archi- 
tecture. With a very few exceptions all of these incom- 
parable treasures were created by religion. The histories of 
the older oriental empires and of Egypt display the same 
facts. Literary art also, considering the Greek dramas, 
Dante, and Milton, at its high points if not at its lower, has 
been chiefly religious. 

* Alessandro Delia Seta, "Religion and Art," p. 35. 
f Ibid., p. 34- 

• 19- 



Art & Religion 

Even the secular spirit ushered in by the Renaissance did 
not take away the dominating religious content of the bril- 
liant works of that movement. The revival of pagan themes 
and the erection of exquisite and luxurious palaces in the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries did not rival the continued 
religious character of the painting, sculpture, and church 
building of the age. 

The effects of the movement, however, soon became char- 
acteristic, and modern art, since the seventeenth century 
painters, especially Flemish and Spanish, and since Shake- 
speare, has not centered its attention chiefly upon religious 
subjects. Whether this has anything to do with the slighter 
and less impressive character of modern art everyone may 
decide for himself. There does not seem to have appeared 
in these modern times any movement of life so self-con- 
scious and masterful as to attain brilliant and consistent 
expression by a great artistic movement comparable with 
earlier creations. 

I am not saying that modern art is irreligious, or that any 
art must be religious in subject matter to be religious in 
spirit. I am not saying that this modern age has been less 
worthy than previous centuries which were more unified. 
We are attempting something wider and harder. But before 
this time, the principal artistic creations of the world were 
closely connected with religion. 

Even now the perennial artistic creativity of religion is 
again beginning to burst into manifold expression. The best 
directly church art of the nineteenth century was in the 
medium of stained glass. The free churches, for the most 
part prejudiced against the use of pictures on canvas or 
on the walls, were quite willing to enjoy pictures in glass. 
Amongst the old churches, with a few signal exceptions, 
both decorative works on a large scale and handicrafts in 
small scale were generally either crude, bizarre, thin, or 
merely rich. 

But the twentieth century has already developed many 
notable works born of the revived passion for beauty in 
the church. Such achievements as the murals in the apse 
of St. Agnes' Church, Cleveland, the lofty reredos in St. 

•20- 




Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, Architect. 

PULPIT • FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH • PITTSBURGH • PENNSYLVANIA 

The statuettes in the sides of the octagon are figures of St. 

Augustine, St. Bernard, Luther, Roger Williams, Count 

Zinzendorf, and Adoniram Judson. 



The Unity of Religion and Art 

Thomas's Church, New York, and the new pulpit of the 
First Baptist Church, Pittsburgh, are evidence that religion 
cannot long be hindered from its natural flowering in the 
arts. 

In another chapter I hope we may see that the artists of 
the race long ago began to say in form and color things 
which did not agree with the subject matter they were 
setting forth. Here we note simply the main fact, that 
historically the principal themes of the arts have been reli- 
gious. The arts have grown out of religion or have been 
produced for the service of religion. 

The unity of religion and art is more profoundly dis- 
covered in our own consciousness. It is the unity of expe- 
rience itself. Religion is more than art and may seem to get 
on entirely without it, yet religionists are always saying 
some of the same things that artists say and artists are 
always testifying some of the same feelings as are religious 
devotees. To perceive beauty is to be moved by something 
of the same emotional course as attends on the perception of 
Divinity. And to create beauty is in some sense to partici- 
pate in the character of Divinity. 

Beauty is one of the three supreme categories of value. 
It follows that religion is directly concerned with beauty, 
for religion is the experience of the highest value. The 
three values are constantly interwoven in human expe- 
rience. The true and the good are beautiful. The beautiful, 
most highly speaking, is both true and good. That which is 
false is not beautiful; it is an ugly lie. That which is bad 
is not beautiful ; it comes of an ugly temper. Whether you 
are aware of it or not, there is a pleasure in the truth and a 
satisfaction in the contemplation of the good which are in 
some measure aesthetic feelings. 

Without presuming to set forth a theory of aesthetics, 
I want here simply to suggest that the experience of beauty 
or the formation of beauty into the world of the arts is like 
the experience of religion in its essential assumptions or 
demands in the realms of thinking, feeling, and willing. 

Religion is more than thought, and its experience is 
larger than merely logical judgments concerning the truth. 

•23- 



Art & Religion 

Yet it is based upon a definite intellectual faith in the one- 
ness of reality. A pluralistic universe is no very satisfactory 
object of religious faith. There are no longer any vital 
polytheistic religions. The object of religious faith is always 
the one true God, in whose ultimate being all the discords 
are harmonized. 

Precisely so, no particular object is beautiful that is not 
a unity. Definitely discordant lines or sounds or shapes or 
colors mar the harmony of any composition and so injure 
its beauty, whether the object be a poem, a building, a 
simple melody of song, a landscape painting, or the land- 
scape itself. It needs no laboring of the point to suggest 
that the first demand of the lover of beauty is the demand 
for unity or harmony. If there be discordant elements, as 
for instance, in a musical work, or in a landscape, there is 
nevertheless that demand that these be harmonized by some 
more inclusive range of unity. 

There is no logical limit to this demand short of the 
universe itself. I am not saying that all artists or devotees 
of the arts are aware of this. I am saying that logically the 
aesthete is united with the religionist in his search for an 
ultimately harmonized world. My four-year-old son can 
fashion accurately with colored blocks a simple composition 
copied from a design. He understands perfectly when a 
single piece is out of place with reference to the unity of 
pattern lines and colors previously selected. A higher unity 
is represented in a Turner landscape. The Overture to 
Tannhauser and the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde de- 
pict a theme of universal range, the war of good and evil. 
Behind the baffling questions of life for mortals and gods 
in the Greek tragedies, back of all the themes, looms the 
finality of Fate: 

"That which needs must be, 
Holdeth the high gods 
As it holdeth thee." 

The history of all the arts will abundantly testify this 
outreach toward the ultimate. The greatest works of art 
are those which have attempted to speak concerning the 

• 24- 



The Unity of Religion and Art 

nature of all things, those which have intimated higher and 
higher ranges of unity. And in a sense all genuine art de- 
picts the nature of any particular thing in such a way as to 
imply its unity with all things: "Art on its side, tacitly 
protests against metaphysical dualism. It does so because, 
being the most immediate form of knowledge, it is in con- 
tact with activity, not with passivity; with interiority, not 
exteriority; with spirit, not with matter, and never with a 
double order of reality."* 

One of the things which religion adds to thought is feel- 
ing. Religion is always more than definitions of the mind; 
it is an attitude or disposition of the heart; it is an imme- 
diate experience of reality, a contemplation of the Divine, 
a communion. It is a feeling of dependence, a feeling of 
peace and of trust. Religion is joy and exuberant abun- 
dance of life. It is that experience beyond thinking and 
doing which engages all the faculties in the highest spiritual 
adventure. 

The experience of beauty includes all these things, at 
least in kind. It is a feeling of repose and quietness. It is a 
feeling of satisfaction, an experience which it is not desired 
to change, being good in itself. The artist is not satisfied 
with secondhand descriptions of reality set forth by scien- 
tist and philosopher; he would have immediate experience 
of the truth. He does not present his view of life in propo- 
sitions or in theoretic form, but rather seeks to express the 
feel of reality, the taste of existence, the texture of the 
world. This is the reason why many great works of art 
intimate more by their form or manner of treatment than 
by the subject matter, and why many supreme artistic crea- 
tions have a vaguely definable content of ideas, as for 
instance, Shelley's "Cloud" and Michel Angelo's figures 
in the Sacristy of San Lorenzo. 

Nor is the artist satisfied with the struggle for material 
goods in the practical world. Although he deals with mate- 
rials, his luxury is a higher one than that of elaborate draw- 
ing rooms, motor cars, or the conquest of trade. The good 
he seeks is a more nearly spiritual good, an experience of 

* Benedetto Croce, "Aesthetic," p. 398. 

• 25. 



Art & Religion 

contemplation as an end in itself for which the labor of 
the practical world is only a means. 

Now these are precisely the points of view which the 
teacher of religion also is constantly seeking to induce. He 
too calls people from their pursuits and practical ambitions 
to enjoy the communions of the spirit. He also summons 
men to leave off for a moment their doing that they may 
devote themselves to seeing. He also is persuaded of the 
inadequacy of mere thinking, claiming the possibility of a 
more nearly immediate experience of reality. 

If this is anything like the truth, it is a strange thing 
that the professional schools for priests and prophets abun- 
dantly supply instruction that is intellectual and moral while 
very meagerly offering any tutelage of the imagination or 
any instruction in the discipline and development of the 
emotional career or in the technique whereby the minister 
of religion may become a proficient master in these areas. 
This will one day be changed so that every trained leader 
of religion will be more aware of the universal hunger for 
beauty and more capable of utilizing this almost unlimited 
asset for the religious ends of his task. 

We are accustomed to thinking that the world of religion 
is willing to recognize this kinship with the world of the 
arts more readily than is the critic of the arts. The con- 
trary is true. One is more likely to find the language of 
religion in the writings of the art world than to discover 
an equal intelligence amongst religious writers concerning 
the critique of the arts. When Bernard Bosanquet says that 
"the mind of man has its own necessity, which weaves its 
great patterns on the face of the whole world. And in these 
patterns — the pattern of life itself — the fullest feeling finds 
embodiment,"* he is discussing the impulse and the neces- 
sity of the artist toward the same experience as the mystic. 

William Temple in discussing some of the noblest works 
of art, writes : "In the presence of such transcendent Beauty, 
we realize the hope of mysticism. In a single impression we 
receive what absolutely satisfies us, and in that perfect sat- 
isfaction we ourselves are lost. Duration vanishes; the 

* Bosanquet, "Three Lectures on Aesthetic," p. 58. 

• 26- 



The Unity of Religion and Art 

'moment eternal' is come. The great drama proceeds; the 
music surges through us; we are not conscious of our own 
existence. We hear and see; and when all is done, we con- 
sider and bow the head."* He is writing as an art critic but 
in the language of religion. Again in discussing one of the 
lectures of Mr. Arthur Balfour, he writes: "The past and 
the future vanish ; space itself is forgotten : whether or not 
mysticism is, as Mr. Balfour fears, the only possible phi- 
losophy of art, it is beyond question that the aesthetic 
experience is a purely mystical experience ; that is to say, it 
is the direct and immediate apprehension of an absolutely 
satisfying object."f 

I have somewhere read in a writing of Archdeacon Free- 
mantle, the following: "Art becomes a binding link be- 
tween men and draws them together toward God. It forms 
a society which must properly be called a Church. Its yearn- 
ing toward the ideal is worship, a prayer. The sharing in 
artistic impressions is a genuine form of worship. It is 
destined to occupy no mean place in the full redemption of 
human life." 

The religious feelings relate to life as a whole. They are 
the response of man to the presently realized existence of 
divinity. They reach out to grasp the Universal and the 
Absolute. The feeling for beauty is usually not universal. 
But it is a feeling for being, for that which has existence. 
Every work of art says, Notice this fact, this bit of life : be 
a lover of life as you see it here. Religion says, Be a lover 
of Life as a Whole, God's Life, love God. There is a pro- 
found identity of attitude between these two. 

Religion is not merely thinking and feeling, it is also 
right doing. The moral issues of religion are ever the con- 
cern of healthy human life. We will have nothing to do 
with a religion which is ineffective in the practical world 
or weak in its increasing enthusiasm for a thoroughgoing 
application of its ideals to every phase of life, industrial 
and political as well as personal. These are the vast prob- 
lems of the hour. We shall have no future religion at all if 
they are not manfully and courageously handled. 

♦Temple, "Mens Creatrix," p. 125. f Ibid., p. 128. 

• 27- 



Art & Religion 

It is too commonly assumed that at this point the arts 
must part company with religion. Many have felt that to 
be interested in Beauty while the world is suffering from 
inhumanity is an ignoble thing. Unfortunately, both the 
conduct of artists in general and many critics of the arts 
have tended to foster such a view. Mr. Merton Stark Yew- 
dale sets forth a correct note on the expressive desire of the 
aesthetic experience and then completely spoils the picture 
by separating that experience from practical life. "We have 
a sensation of an enhanced power, a compelling desire to 
rid ourselves of a certain state of tension, . . . eagerness 
to reciprocate the force which the artist exerts toward us."* 
So far so good. Then something extremely bad: "As our 
faculties are again assembled we see once more that life is 
the great delusion and Art the supreme counter-agent to 
existence." f 

How could anyone write that who had ever read Emer- 
son's "Compensation" 4 ? There are in fact no real barriers 
between the world of Art Life and the world of Common 
Life. The artist marks off a bit of the world and harmonizes 
it and sees that it is good or beautiful. Religion rises to see 
that all creation is good. It will admit no barriers. It would 
glorify all life. 

The very nature of artistry is activity. Works of art are 
described as creations. Whatever may be said about the 
appreciation of Beauty, art is the production of Beauty. 
Artistry is expression, release, liberation, outgoing effort, 
authorship, origination. Its results are not called thoughts 
of art or feelings of art but works of art. 

And the artist not only creates new forms of material 
beauty but also new persons. The very essence of the thing 
that happens to people when they are impressed by beauty, 
either of nature or of art, is increased vitality. They are 
literally remade, increased in strength of body and strength 
of mind. 

Still a third practical effect of the artist's work is the 
result in the world of the enhanced power developed in the 

* The Aesthetic World," International Studio, November, 1918. 
Mbid. 

•28. 



The Unity of Religion and Art 

aesthetic experience. This is the point least clearly inti- 
mated by writers on the subject, and denied by many. It 
is the point of disagreement with Mr. Yewdale. Even 
Professor Hocking in his profound discussion of art and 
religion in the volume, "Human Nature and Its Remak- 
ing," does not sufficiently get away from his suggestion that 
the world of art is an arena in which man may make his 
conquests more easily than in the world of fact. "Art is the 
region which man has created for himself, wherein he can 
find scope for unexpressed powers, and yet win an absolute 
success, in testimony of his own reality. ... It has but 
feeble contact with the more pressing problems of the 
'common man.' It fits no one for dealing with the as yet 
unharmonized aspects of experience. Its tendency would be 
to seclude itself, build for itself high garden walls, and in 
the midst of a world small enough to be perfectly con- 
trolled, forget the ugly, the squalid, the disordered, the just 
causes for warfare and rebellion."* 

There are undoubtedly many facts which bear out this 
view. And with the facts coincides the oft-repeated descrip- 
tion of the experience of beauty as being a feeling of power 
coupled with the paradoxical feeling of repose, a sense of 
great energy but of no demand to exercise it. The aesthetic 
moment is by everyone described as the moment of perfect 
satisfaction. 

But I believe it to be only a moment. Something else 
follows and that very quickly. We are not long enthralled 
by the satisfaction of any work of art; soon we recall life 
as we know it, all of it, and the recollection breaks the spell 
and demands a new satisfaction of the imagination. I have 
nowhere seen a better description or explanation of this 
paradox of repose and passion than that of Croce: "The 
sensibility or passion relates to the rich material which the 
artist absorbs into his psychic organization ; the insensibility 
or serenity to the form which he subjugates and dominates 
the tumult of the feelings and of the passions."f But the 
moment of serenity and repose is followed by fresh disturb- 

* W. E. Hocking, "Human Nature and Its Remaking," pp. 291 and 326. 
f Benedetto Croce, "Aesthetic," p. 35. 

• 29- 



Art & Religion 

ance at the remembrance of the practical world. There is no 
logical limit to the natural desire of the artist to subjugate 
many elements into a comprising harmony. And whoever 
perceives and enjoys that harmony, strictly speaking, must 
at last step outside of its frame and seek a composition that 
will harmonize all things. This is religion. 

A definite suggestion of this logic occurs in Mr. Hock- 
ing's chapters: "But interest in beauty reaches the central 
current of the will, and when this interest is awakened all 
transference of skill and discipline becomes natural. It is 
the nature of beauty to overflow departments and to make 
the man of one piece. . . . The real artist knows that to 
yield to the aristocratic impulse in the aesthetic conscious- 
ness is to cut off the sources of his own art. For beauty, let 
me repeat, is reality offering a glimpse of the solution of 
its own problems of evil."* And Miss Harrison says that: 
"Art is of real value to life in a perfectly biological sense; 
it invigorates, enhances, promotes actual spiritual, and 
through it, physical life." Mr. Pond's definition of art turns 
upon this point precisely: "The regulation of thought and 
act with the idea of making — not getting — making the most 
of life is called art."f 

Another suggestion of this all-including expressive logic 
of art comes from C. A. Bennett, although at first seeming 
to disagree. He says that "This is one of the great con- 
tributions of art to life: it offers a rest cure to the weary 
moralist." And this by offering a refuge from the real 
world of real moral struggle — "If morality offers us only a 
vision of a world perpetually in the making, art presents 
to us a picture of a world in some sense finished and com- 
plete. It transforms us from participators in the struggle 
into spectators of a drama. We need not decide : we appre- 
ciate. The power and beauty of the whole composition give 
a consciousness of unity which is able to contain the moral 
distractions. The moral nerve is not stirred to life, we do not 
feel 'that something must be done about it.' "J 

* Hocking, "Human Nature and Its Remaking," pp. 324 and 327. 
t Pond, "The Meaning of Architecture," p. 224. 
$ International Journal of Ethics, January, 1920. 

.30- 



The Unity of Religion and Art 

Notice, however, that Mr. Bennett does not confuse the 
"spectator" attitude to the work of art with the same dis- 
position toward life. As just suggested above, it is my view 
that this withdrawn and restful experience of looking upon 
beauty does not last long before the recollection of life tries 
to get inside the picture. To be sure there is nothing de- 
manding to be done by what is inside the artist's depiction, 
that momentary world being complete and perfect. But so 
soon as the rest of the world by recollection, begins to ob- 
trude itself, then immediately there is everything to be done 
above it. And as the result of the rest, of the refreshment, 
and literal recreation of the experience, there are new 
powers ready for the task. 

And this pressure of the world as a whole to come within 
the frame, Mr. Bennett intimates : "Art, we say, in effect, if 
not in intention, redeems the world from ugliness. The goal 
of artistic endeavor would be attained when it had been 
shown that nothing was outcast from the world of beauty, 
when a rendering of life had been given in which ugliness 
was included and transformed." 

I do not claim that this natural tendency to translate 
the energy of the artistic experience into definite moral 
effects in the practical world is the usual issue in the life of 
the average man. Ordinarily, it fails unless the man has in 
other connections already been touched by a religious 
motive, and instructed in the moral life. This purposive 
moment is the point where, as it were, Art leaves off and 
Religion begins. I do believe, none the less, that this ex- 
pressive tendency is the logic of the experience of beauty 
even by itself. The average man, moved by the power of 
beauty in nature or art possesses no artistic technique, no 
particular skill in poetry, painting, or architecture. His clay 
is the plastic stuff of his own character and his materials the 
fluctuating affairs of the workaday world. Probably thou- 
sands of men have not only been moved by impressions of 
beauty henceforth to express themselves more richly in com- 
mon life but have had definite success in carrying out the 
impulse. 

Is there any very great difference between the expressive 

•31- 



Art & Religion 

logic of the Arts and the expressive demand of Religion*? 
Religion itself does not always succeed in getting its vital- 
ity coupled up with the moral life. Religion and art are 
alike in the impulse to recreate the world after the heart's 
desire. 

If all these things are anything like true, why have we 
been so slow in recognizing it? Why even have so many 
thought of the arts as subversive of religion? If Religion 
and Art are so much kin in their common Assumption of 
Unity in the Universe, in their Experience of Contempla- 
tion, and in their Mandate to Expression, why have we so 
frequently thought of artists as irreligious? The answer is 
that we have thought wrong. 

Modern art is individualistic, very little devoted to set- 
ting forth a definitely religious content. But this is the 
nature of the age and not the fault of the artists. This is 
the artist's empirical approach to reality no less than the 
scientist's. 

Artists have been habitually antinomian, lawless. So 
have prophets, breaking down old moralities that newer and 
better might be formed. Not many devotees of art seem to 
apprehend the full course of their own typical career. This 
is partly due to much bad art. Not all art is good any more 
than average popular religion is the best religion. The better 
the art, the more likely it is to result in a completed course 
of experience. 

Artists and critics of art often stand outside the definite 
institutions of religion. But it would astonish the ignorant 
church worker to be made aware of the range and passion 
of the search for reality and of right attitudes toward it 
which is revealed in the total world of music, letters, paint- 
ing, building, and all the other forms through which the 
artists of the world are attempting to set forth "their 
scheme of the weal and the woe." 

I am not sufficiently a philosopher to launch a discussion 
of the nature of the limitations of art as compared with 
religion. The transcendence of religion is viewed to be such, 
not in one direction merely, but in several, especially in rela- 
tion to the three aspects of experience so briefly presented 

■v-- 



The Unity of Religion and Art 

in this chapter. I can suggest only a hint of such a discussion 
by another sentence or two from Croce, "Art is the root of 
all our theoretic life. To be the root, not the flower or fruit, 
is the function of art. And without a root, there can be no 
flower and no fruit."* Or again, to much the same intent: 
"If art, then, be the first and most ingenuous form of 
knowledge, it cannot give complete satisfaction to man's 
need to know, and therefore cannot be the ultimate end of 
the theoretic spirit." 

Nevertheless, Art and Religion belong together by cer- 
tain profound identities of Origin, Subject Matter, and 
Inner Experience. 

* Benedetto Croce, "Aesthetic," p. 386. 



33 



Chapter IV : The Cleft between Art and Religion 

WE cannot live without truth, goodness, and 
beauty. Not everyone cares for these, but they 
are the supreme human values. Religion can- 
not live without them. Yet there is a world of Thought out- 
side the world of religion which repudiates much of what 
organized religion claims to be the truth. There is a world 
of Moral Aspiration outside the religious world which is 
impatient of the lagging step of organized religious faith 
toward better conceptions of justice and brotherhood. So 
also there is a world of Art dissevered from the institutions 
of religion, its spiritual hunger unsatisfied by the ugliness of 
present-day religious forms. Religion cannot complete her 
reformation until she has squared her experience not only 
with Scientist and Moralist but also with the Artist. 

Since the mid-nineteenth century there have appeared 
innumerable books concerned with healing the breach be- 
tween religion and science. The opening of the twentieth 
century saw the setting of a full tide of interest in making 
earnest with the newer moral implications of religion. The 
coming generation will insist upon its birthright to beauty. 

The cleft between science and religion is an old story. I 
recall hearing Governor Baldwin of Connecticut say some 
years ago something about the happy completion of the task 
of transition from the old theology to the new. It was true 
for the noble old parish of which he was a member. It is not 
true of the larger part of the Christian world. The "modern- 
ist" movement in the Roman Catholic Church has been 
stamped out ruthlessly. There would appear to be glimmers 
of light here and there in the Greek Church. The Anglican 
communion still maintains rigidly a view of the sacraments 
and of ordination which is a sheer logical impossibility to 
the accepted scientific assumptions of modern life. In the 
great city where I live most of the Protestant preaching still 

•34- 



The Cleft between Art and Religion 

holds to an essentially traditional view of the scriptures and 
does not accept the canons of historical learning. There is 
indeed a deep cleft between religion and thought. 

No one claims that science is always right. It is itself 
humble and teachable. In these virtues it is often more reli- 
gious than religion. But it does claim to be one of the 
avenues toward the truth. It has achieved conceptions of 
the material universe and certain methods of work accepted 
by so large a part of the world of thought that religion can 
do nothing else than examine them fearlessly and try them 
bravely. 

Many are no longer interested especially in this con- 
troversy. The flank of the battle against tradition has been 
turned by religion itself, in the charge that the traditional 
views of church and scriptures are not only unscientific but 
irreligious. Modern religion believes in the prophet, and in 
the continued revelation of truth as ever of old. The tradi- 
tional experience is not sufficiently religious for the modern 
man. 

The cleft between morals and religion is the issue of the 
hour. Many times have I listened to the claim on the part 
of some social worker that there was more of the Kingdom 
of God outside the church than in it. Many times has it 
been charged that the church was interested in charity but 
not in justice. The older aristocratic churches do not in the 
nature of the case sympathize with the growingly demo- 
cratic character of modern morals. Of late, there has been 
large attention on the part of denominational leaders and 
newspapers to the industrial and civic questions of the day. 
But even so, the leadership in social criticism and in con- 
structive social suggestion has been outside the church 
rather than in it. The fault does not lie with Christianity as 
such. The implications of that are wide and deep, and 
would involve profound alterations in many institutional 
structures if logically and thoroughly applied. It is a mis- 
fortune not merely for religion but for the world of social 
and moral leadership that they are so dissevered. 

More and more people are becoming interested in this 
subject. It is the overwhelming question of the day. It is 

•35- 



Art & Religion 

infinitely more important for the moment, and possibly 
always will be, than the subject of this book. And yet, from 
another point of view it is part of the same subject. For it 
is after all the struggle of human life to have a larger share 
in the beauty of life. 

The cleft between art and religion is a less familiar sub- 
ject. The lines of cleavage between religion and art run 
differently. If the old hierarchic churches seem to us of 
the Protestant world still to be interested in the maintenance 
of outworn truth and in the practice of an outworn good- 
ness, they may easily accuse us of not being interested in 
beauty at all. As there is a world of Science outside the 
church satisfied with the love of truth and a world of 
Morality outside the church seeking its own way of good- 
ness, so there is a world of Art outside the church enjoying 
its life of beauty; and it is a very large world. 

There is something about life more significant than think- 
ing or than doing, life itself which finds its expression and its 
joy in the beauty of nature and of art and the intimations 
and communion which these assist. It is a fatal mistake for 
religion not to realize the vast numbers of people who find 
their spiritual satisfactions as devotees of the arts. 

Humanity permanently craves beauty. The generation 
will soon be here which will refuse to worship in ugly build- 
ings, or attend an ill-constructed service with fitful and 
spasmodic music. There are more people of the present 
generation who have withdrawn from devotion to the 
church for its failure in beauty than we imagine. Worship 
is a fine art, the finest and highest of all the arts, but there 
has been little improvement in it since the Reformation. 

This accusation holds against the older churches as well 
as against the free churches. We may rightly lay to the 
influence of the Reformation the negation of the arts which 
on the whole has characterized Protestantism. There is no 
logical reason why Protestantism should be suspicious of 
the fine arts, but the historic results have been as unfor- 
tunate as if there were. Not all the poor artistry, however, in 
the Christian churches is the fault of the free churches. It 
is possibly no more blameworthv to be contented with 

.36. 



The Cleft between Art and Religion 

meager and uninteresting forms than to maintain outworn 
and stereotyped forms, however successful they may once 
have been. 

The canon of the Roman Catholic Mass has been fixed 
for so long that no improvement in the art of worship can 
be credited to the Roman Church for many generations. The 
service is still in Latin. Those who are instructed in its 
meaning step by step can understand it, but not anyone 
else. Symbolic art was devised for the purpose of communi- 
cation. A stranger to the Christian faith would be very 
slightly enlightened by the symbols which the Romanists 
use to convey the gospel message. 

The Roman Church makes great claim of being the 
vehicle for the continued revelations of the Divine Word. 
But nothing has been vouchsafed to it for hundreds of 
years sufficiently fresh and enlivening to find incorporation 
in the regular mode of teaching the people. There seem to 
have been no improvements even in the matter of telling the 
old truths. A liturgy which is truly vital must certainly 
from time to time be purged of the elements for which there 
no longer appear assignable reasons. The principal variable 
parts of the missal were themselves selected more or less 
arbitrarily. Mr. Adrian Fortesque,* in his study of litur- 
gical sources, cannot discover any reasons for the assign- 
ment of the schedule of Introits as they now stand. All these 
things are sufficiently faulty apart from the chief criticism 
of all, that the religion taught in the Roman service is not 
the modern man's religion. 

These things were not always true of the great liturgy 
of the church. Far back, in the days of the Fathers, there 
were varied and variable usages both east and west. In the 
later crystallizations of form throughout different nations 
there were developed different orders of worship, Syrian, 
Coptic, Leonine, Gallican, Gelasian, Gregorian, Gothic, 
Jacobite, Mozarabic, Sarum, St. James, St. Mark, and 
other sacramentaries. Some of these are still maintained. 
But many of them were long since merged and lost in the 

* Adrian Fortesque, "The Mass." 

•37- 



Art & Religion 

authoritative order of Rome, and the vital growth of 
freedom stopped. 

Architecturally the Roman Catholic Church in America 
is just now making very great improvements. Much of its 
recent work is of great artistic merit. But it is passing 
strange that for the most part during American history 
there should have come to this new nation no artistic intel- 
ligence and culture through the channels of the old ecclesi- 
astical organization. No Protestant Church in America has 
built any more ugly buildings than the Roman Catholic 
Church. 

By all the probabilities in the case we should look for a 
far higher record in the Anglican Church and its American 
associate the Protestant Episcopal Church. And so indeed 
we find at many points. The architectural history of the 
Episcopal Church in the United States from its beginnings 
to the present is almost unexceptionally excellent. No other 
body comes anywhere near approaching it. Since the Colo- 
nial days, when it followed the prevailing Classic mode, it 
has consistently utilized its proper English Gothic inspira- 
tion. I have never seen a distinctly bad Episcopal Church, 
and there are many buildings of great beauty. 

The state of the case for the liturgy is not so good. The 
English Book of Common Prayer is, of course, one of the 
great artistic masterpieces of the world. Its rhythmic and 
noble style of speech, rich vocabulary, and compact, lucid 
structure are of the highest order of art. Its range of ideas 
and depths of feeling betoken a religious experience genuine, 
profound, and sympathetic. But the experience so beauti- 
fully set forth is not at many points our experience. No 
very important change has been incorporated since the res- 
toration of the second prayer book of Edward VI by Queen 
Elizabeth. However admirable the age of the great Eliza- 
bethans, its emotions and ideals will not completely serve 
for us. 

New collects are, of course, used in this country and in 
England, but the principal offices remain unchanged. There 
are so many intimations of a royal and aristocratic regime 
that as it stands it cannot serve to express our present faith 

. 3 8- 



The Cleft between Art and Religion 

or aspiration. Its morality is different from our morality. 
The theology back of it is not our theology. Its content of 
ideas is not satisfactory. And its form, although gracious 
and powerful, is, nevertheless, more and more remote from 
the forms of average speech, especially in America. 

It is not necessary to go to outsiders for criticisms of the 
Episcopal liturgy. "The prayer book as it stands is a volume 
that serves only those who are highly instructed in the 
faith."* This is the same fault that attaches to the Latin 
Mass, and almost as grave. This remoteness from the com- 
mon medium speech was more than ever discovered in the 
pressure of army camp conditions. "How we have blushed 
for the incomprehensibility even of the collects," writes 
Chaplain Milner-White. "We never guessed of old how 
removed it was from common wants : nor how unintelligible 
are its prayers and forms of devotion. Its climate to the 
simple ardent Christian is often ice." 

Respecting inadequacy of the order to express modern 
moral conditions is this : "The prayer book in a peculiar way 
reflects the mind of the church to the nation. It is the public 
programme of British institutional Christianity; an official 
demonstration of the interests and passions that we bring 
to the throne of God. Men mark that these interests are 
curiously remote from those of an eager and well-meaning 
world, from its life, society, and work. For example, the 
problems of labor press upon us, and vast Christian issues 
hang upon them, but the Prayer Book cares, on the face of it, 
for none of these things; and the Church therefore stands 
condemned by the millions. If only a litany of labor lay 
within its covers, what a reproach would be done away with. 
And more — it would preach Christian social obligations as 
a thousand sermons could not; the mere fact of being in a 
prayer book would make it, so to speak, a general routine 
order; the conscience of church people would be insensibly 
and surely taught and moved." 

Another writer, the Rev. C. Salisbury Woodward, M.C., 
MA., Canon of Southwark Cathedral, says that "The 

♦The Rev. E. Milner-White, D.S.O., M.A., "The Church in the Fur- 
nace." 

•39- 



Art & Religion 

language of many of the prayers is out of date and there- 
fore unintelligible if not actually misleading to the major- 
ity," and that "The subject matter of the prayers is unsatis- 
factory; it is too general and abstract for common use." He 
also believes that the psalms and lessons are indiscriminate 
and not well selected for modern faith or devotion. He 
proposes changes in these and in the form of language: "If 
John Smith and Thomas Jones are to learn to pray with 
reality they must be allowed to ask for the things they really 
need and to ask for them in the language of their own day, 
not in that of the Elizabethans, however perfect the latter 
might have been."* 

Some of these criticisms are the same as originally made 
by the first Puritans. It is surely not to be expected that the 
average American can be spiritually satisfied by these forms 
so long ago unsatisfactory to many, lately in the critical 
experience of the war freshly seen to be inadequate to set 
forth modern faith and hope. This is not to refuse, however, 
to make use of many of the best prayers in the book. Some 
of these prayers are published in the ordinary hymnals of 
free churches and often used. Yet undoubtedly one of the 
reasons which keeps the free churches from a larger resort to 
this great treasury of devotion is the seeming inability of 
those who use it and publish it to maintain it as a fresh and 
growing instrument of grace. 

The cleft between the rest of Protestantism and the world 
of the arts would be patent to all if we had eyes to see it. 
Not all of Protestantism is derived from the Puritans. The 
Lutheran bodies were little touched with Puritan feeling. 
Their forms early became stereotyped and have ever since 
been characterized by a certain dryness. Yet even so, some 
of their usages are far superior to those of many of the free 
churches. 

The Wesleyan bodies, having once left behind the mother 
church, early developed exercises of vivid color and warmth, 
appealing to the sensibilities in a more primitive and more 
powerful way than the finer arts are capable of. Fiery speech 

♦The Rev. C. Salisbury Woodward, M.C., M.A., "The Church in the 
Furnace." 

• 40- 



The Cleft between Art and Religion 

and highly colored rhetoric were proved to be more effective 
in pioneer conditions than lighted altars or vested choirs. It 
remains to be seen whether the usage of these emotional 
factors can continue to be inspiring as the community be- 
comes older and more cultivated. 

The Puritans themselves objected to the material elements 
in the sacraments. They abolished not only holy water and 
ashes but also pictures and statues, not only shrines of the 
saints but organs and instruments of music and even the use 
of the ring in the marriage service. Presbyterian, Reformed, 
Baptist, and Congregational bodies were largely touched at 
the very beginning with the Puritan spirit. Yet the usages in 
all of these groups are today very different from the original 
practices and they are as formal and stereotyped in their own 
way as the canon of the Mass itself. The boasted freedom 
and spontaneity of the free church worship has shaken itself 
down to a common level of custom, and not a very high one 
at that. One might easily discover on examining the order of 
service in a thousand churches of these denominations that 
the variations would be so slight as to be negligible. 

There is a kind of average order of service used all over 
the United States in the majority of Protestant churches 
which is pretty much the same thing. It has been developed 
naively and has some excellent traits. And if it is proposed 
to change it, someone is sure to cry, "No, no, this is not 
Congregational," or whatever other church proposes the 
experiment. Yet the fact is, that this average order is of 
comparatively recent date and only remotely resembles the 
exercises of public worship used in the earlier days of all 
these bodies. The order has the merit of natural develop- 
ment, but with equal naturalness it needs more development, 
and it also needs something else, as do all the old liturgies. 

We live in an analytical and psychological age, and are 
no longer able to enjoy a wholly naive experience. In a day 
when all the other arts are analyzed and criticised in detail, 
it is impossible to expect that an uncriticised art of worship 
can be effective. We have come to the point where we must 
reexamine the whole subject. This average order that is so 
prevalent among us is unpsychological, tiresome, stereo- 

.41. 



Art & Religion 

typed, ill constructed, neither interesting nor impressive nor 
beautiful. It contains far less spontaneous and original mate- 
rial than is claimed for it. Even in the prayers, the only 
opportunity for fresh content, probably the average minister 
covers the same thoughts in the same style much more fre- 
quently than does the Prayer Book and does not do it nearly 
so well. There is more repetition of phrases and of ideas than 
in the written liturgy. Notable exceptions on the part of 
gifted ministers do not alter this unfortunate general 
situation. 

We have a liturgy but it is a poor one. We use artistry but 
not good artistry. The current usages in forms of worship are 
not at all those which originally characterized the religious 
movement of the Protestant world. They are the forms de- 
veloped in the latter half of the nineteenth century, a time, 
more than any other in all history, of artistic confusion and 
prevalent ugliness. 

Recently there have been many attempts at improvement, 
some of them significant and successful. For the most part, 
however, they are spoken of as "enrichment of the service," 
"the use of forms," "an elaborate order of worship." None 
of these phrases explains much, or indicates any genuinely 
artistic achievement. They do evidence a dissatisfaction with 
something sadly in need of improvement. But the need is not 
more formalism nor enrichment nor elaboration. The need is 
for unity, simplicity, and beauty. There are many "en- 
riched" services composed simply of the typical, ugly, aver- 
age American order with additions of musical numbers, 
choir responses, vestments, or read prayers, a kind of glori- 
fied city edition of the common town order. All these things 
jumbled together, however elaborate, or however beautiful 
in detail, do not make a noble liturgy. Nothing is beautiful 
that does not have unity, harmony, wholeness. 

There will continue to be a cleft between religion and art 
until the service of worship in the average Christian church 
is organized on precisely the same principles as those by 
which any artist, working in any medium, organizes the 
material under his hand into a beautiful work. 

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.42. 



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buildings common in America until the recent 

style revivals. 



The Cleft between Art and Religion 

to us is the most of American church architecture. Here also 
all is confusion in the Protestant world. Those ecclesiastical 
bodies of a homogeneous tradition and race have done much 
better than the others. The Lutheran and Reformed groups 
are of this character, and their buildings, if not always beau- 
tiful, are always symbolic of their use and dignified. Pre- 
vious to 1830, an excellent Anerican style prevailed, and 
there yet remain, throughout the commonwealths of the 
early colonies both north and south, numbers of very beauti- 
ful Colonial churches. 

Everyone familiar with American domestic and public 
architecture since that time knows the sad story of wretched 
and ugly work in various forms. Two or three strong notes 
in building gained considerable currency one after another 
throughout the country, such as a slender kind of wooden 
Gothic, the walnut-and-marble-fireplace period, the Mansart- 
roof decade. Then came the most shocking of all the types, 
the attempted reproductions which followed the work of a 
great architect, Richardson. Not only West, but in the East, 
there are innumerable church buildings which must be laid to 
his door. His own work was magnificent, especially in Trin- 
ity Church, Boston; but all over the country there are little 
churches which resemble, however faintly, the few successful 
buildings that were made in this adapted Romanesque style. 

By some terrible invasion of a desire for a practical build- 
ing, a combination building, there appeared in this style the 
device of a square church, having the pulpit in one corner 
so that the opening of great folding doors could combine a 
Sunday school hall with the church auditorium. No inven- 
tion was ever more frightful. No artist would dream of 
focusing attention to the corner of a square room. Sitting 
askew of the cardinal points puts a slant into your very 
morals. And the circular pews make one feel as though he 
were in a clinical laboratory. The prominence of organ pipes 
on one side and the dreary, barren waste of folding doors 
on the other constitute a composition in disharmony and 
impropriety almost positively demoralizing. The buildings 
of this style stand on one side of a deep and wide gulf from 

.45. 



Art & Religion 

anything that could remotely be connected with the world 
of the fine arts. 

It seems utterly unbelievable, but within a year or two 
there has actually been published a book promoted by the 
Missionary Education Movement, recommending for coun- 
try churches precisely this most ugly conceivable structure, 
the square church with corner pulpit. That such ignorance 
and bad taste should be found among church leaders of the 
time is ample evidence of the sorry state of religious art. 
Why should these leaders be unaware of the excellent work 
being done in many quarters'? 

We are rapidly approaching a time of far greater interest 
and demand for successful artistry than ever before in 
American life. Domestic and public architecture is improv- 
ing by leaps and bounds. Better taste is being developed 
throughout the whole community. Larger and larger num- 
bers of people are becoming familiar with the best products 
of the world of the arts. Meanwhile very few religious 
leaders are at all conscious of the connection between the 
art of worship and art in general, and there are still being 
built incredibly disagreeable church buildings. Religion may 
fairly be charged with being far removed both architectur- 
ally and liturgically from the canons of taste and of beauty 
which are rapidly being applied in all other departments of 
life. 

The charge should be extended to include blame not only 
for bad artistry, but for failure to make larger and better 
use of the positive goods to be derived from all the arts, 
glass work, painting, sculpture, decoration, dramatic action, 
music, literature, and architecture. 

The fault is not wholly the fault of the church, but also 
of artists. Very few artists know enough about religion or 
the church to represent it in saying what needs to be said 
artistically. Few architects understand the message of 
modern religion. Few composers have sought to produce 
work which could be woven into a unified liturgical compo- 
sition. Few patrons of the arts have realized the incom- 
parable opportunity for public refinement and elevation 
offered by the churches. 

• 4 6. 



The Cleft between Art and Religion 

Religion is more than beauty, and worship is more than 
art. If the artist is captivated by the life of beauty, the reli- 
gionist is able to see the beauty of life. It is precisely because 
the artist is himself so good a seer, and because his work 
helps people to see some part of reality, that religion needs to 
work with him that people may be led to a more moving 
vision of the Whole. 



47 



Chapter V : The Mutual Need 

WE need first to speak of mutual recognition. The 
churchman has not yet noted the magnitude of 
the world of the arts. He has moved in the area 
of his own spiritual experience and his own modes of wor- 
ship. He has related that experience with the problems of 
thought, or at least he thinks he has. He has related that 
experience with the problems of conduct, the morals of pri- 
vate life, and now more and more the morals of industrial 
life. He has noticed the world of science and the world of 
civics; he is only slightly aware of the world of art. 

The artist is vaguely aware of the pervasive fact of reli- 
gion, but is in the main ignorant of the directions of religious 
progress. His religious interest tends to be archaeological. He 
enjoys the survey of the picturesque remnants and survivals 
of once vital and noble rituals; he has little interest in the 
spiritual growths which have not yet found expression in 
his own mode. If art is to have a vital connection with 
religion, it must face forward instead of backward, it must 
begin to anticipate the future movements of the spirit rather 
than to occupy itself with wistful regrets for disappearing 
religious cultures. 

Every civilized community is now vitally interested in 
the arts. In any great modern city the numbers of persons 
and the numbers of hours devoted to some form of artistic 
production are very far in excess of the numbers of persons 
or hours consciously devoted to religion. Night after night, 
theaters are filled with thousands of people. Day after day, 
the moving picture houses are thronged. Week after week, 
the printing presses are turning out unnumbered copies of 
novels. Month after month, the popular magazines publish 
millions of pages of short stories. Much of this output may 
not be sufficiently good to be acknowledged as art, but it 

• 4 8. 



The Mutual Need 

pretends to be, and the success of its appeal lies in the cate- 
gory of the arts. So much will be readily recognized. 

It is not so easy to be aware of the scope of the higher 
works of art and of artistic criticism. A very large number 
of American cities foster the production of music on a high 
plane. The most of these also possess a more or less creditable 
collection of works of plastic or pictorial art, together with 
the possessions of private collectors. Large portions of the 
journalistic press of all nations are devoted to the criticism 
of the fine arts. The comparatively small space in the popu- 
lar journals devoted to religion is in some measure an index 
of the comparative popular interest. There are not many 
journals devoted wholly to the arts, but they are for the 
most part of a high order of excellence. Not only questions 
of technique and composition, but questions of spiritual 
interpretation crowd the paragraphs of the art critics of the 
world. 

The first thing to say, then, is an admonition to the 
churchmen simply to notice these facts, the incalculable sum 
total of human interest devoted in one way or another to 
the production or appreciation of poetic, dramatic, and other 
literature, to music, painting, sculpture, architecture, and 
the decorative arts. 

The second thing to say, is an admonition to the artist to 
open his eyes to the perennial and pervasive human interest 
in religion. There is no community without it iri some form 
or other. It is a world far more subtle, powerful, and exten- 
sive than his world. Those who consciously devote them- 
selves to it far outnumber those who have anything like a 
critical attitude toward the arts. Its feeling reaches almost 
every human life at its beginning and end. Its enterprises 
engage the services of far more professional workers, to- 
gether with far more volunteer workers, than any other 
human interest. It is a vast, complicated world, which can- 
not possibly be ignored by anyone who attempts to see life 
and see it whole. 

In the light of these facts, I am setting down two or three 
ways in which art needs religion and religion needs the arts. 

I am not unmindful of the danger to the artist and his 

.49. 



Art & Religion 

work if he sees and speaks from the point of view of any 
specific religion. If his spirit and outlook are limited to the 
range of experience derived from any particular religious 
sect, he is by that very fact hindered from the fresh and un- 
trammeled insight expected of him. He cannot be a success- 
ful seer if he sees nothing more than he has been taught to 
see. But the true artist is not very liable to this danger. He 
possesses an independence of his own. His danger is, rather, 
a too great separation from normal feelings. The average 
artist is a separatistic person. He may belong to a group or 
guild of fellow craftsmen. He is at least subconsciously 
aware of the great dominant spirit of his time and nation: 
but he is almost necessarily a more aloof and independent 
worker than the scientist or the moralist or the religionist. 

The superiority of religion is this, that it has been built 
up in the community. It relates itself to all interests and all 
experiences, past, present, and future. It comprises the pur- 
suit of truth and goodness as well as of beauty. It draws 
upon efforts of the mind and of the will as well as of the 
emotions. It has its theology as well as its ritual. It is at 
work as well as at worship. It has an evangel to proclaim, a 
mission to perform, a perpetual moral program to carry 
through, a perpetual ministry to exercise. When it betakes 
itself to contemplation, it is already equipped with the best 
thinking of the day and the best ethics of the day. Its total 
attitude to the world is not derived from the imagination 
only, but from rigid processes of historic thought and from 
persistent efforts in the practical world. These mental and 
moral factors have entered into its make-up profoundly. 

The artist, without religion, usually approaches his world 
very largely uninfluenced by the values derived from science 
and philosophy, or the virtues engendered in the moral 
efforts of mankind. It is impossible for the religious mystic 
to approach his world without being profoundly affected, 
even though subconsciously, by the long inclusion of the 
values of thinker and doer in the life of the religious com- 
munity to which he belongs. The fine arts of the world would 
be infinitely richer if produced by men whose attitudes 
toward life came forward out of the more inclusive back- 

• 50- 



The Mutual Need 

ground which it is the constant effort of religion to main- 
tain in the human consciousness. 

Art needs religion, therefore, to universalize its back- 
ground of concepts, both mentally and morally. Some art 
critics, such as Benedetto Croce, repudiate the art that be- 
gins conceptually. They do not regard anything as strictly 
in the world of aesthetics except an immediate intuition of 
particular reality. I do not know what they would make of 
"Macbeth" or Rodin's "Hand of God." Certainly these 
works seem to have been conceived rather than perceived. 
And in any case, the artist's perception of particulars is 
powerfully affected by his conceptions of all things. The 
only area in which conceptions of all things are formed by 
the historic and communal exercise of all the human facul- 
ties and endeavors is the area of religion. 

Art needs religion to correct its moral content. I do not 
wish artists to be pointing morals. But they are constantly 
affecting popular morals whether they intend to or not. I am 
willing to admit that this is none of their concern, but it is 
the concern of the rest of us. And it is their concern to pro- 
duce works of artistic excellence, which is impossible if these 
works are not true reports of life as it is. Religion presumes 
to make a true report of life as it is. It assumes to describe 
spiritual laws as these are discovered to be true and univer- 
sal. It assumes to construct a definite moral content in the 
light of these laws. If the artist could bring to his observa- 
tion of life and his artistic depiction the moral equipment 
of religion, he would be a better artist. I am not asking that 
he be a moralist except in so far as it affects his art. 

Religion needs art to be impressive, to get a hearing. This 
is one of the chief problems of the church. How shall it arrest 
attention? How shall it make itself more noticeable in the 
community? How shall it set forth its first appeal so that 
he who runs may read? Most people are in a hurry these 
days, involved in many affairs. Weak voices and unimpres- 
sive proposals do not reach them. Religion cannot affect the 
average man unless it first gets his attention. The problem of 
advertising religion is far deeper than a matter of newspaper 
notices. At this point the fine art of building is the chief 

.51. 



Art & Religion 

dependence and religion cannot dispense with it. This is 
especially true in the larger communities. In the life of the 
older America, most people of the community understood 
a great deal about the intellectual and spiritual differences 
through which the differing sects came into being. This is 
not true today. The masses of our church people no longer 
understand these things or care about them. The masses of 
aliens know nothing about them. The majority simply read 
from superficial . The obscure and unimpressive church 
buildings, however high or distinguished may be the life 
which they house, tell nothing to the average outsider. The 
religion that survives in the new age will be impressively 
set forth at the very start by the outward appearance and 
interesting character of its structure. Moreover, first impres- 
sions on the inside are vital. The church can utilize the work 
of the artist architect, decorator, musician, and liturgist to 
the ends of an immediately impressive appeal to anyone who 
comes within. 

It is the artistic side of religion which is the chief source 
of the enjoyment of it. The deeper joys of religion are, to be 
sure, its spiritual joys, trust, and peace, and hope, forgive- 
ness and worthy labor. But the everyday human satisfac- 
tions, and sometimes the stimulus for the higher spiritual 
joys, are derived from successful artistry in public worship. 
Religion would not long attract people in an advancing 
civilization if it should cut away the rhythmic forms of 
hymns and songs, the artistic excellence of diction and 
rhetoric, and the stately dignity of noble buildings. Many 
people turn to art instead of to religion for rest and refuge, 
for recreation after the moral struggle of practical life. A 
work of noble art is in itself, by its composure and perfec- 
tion, a peace giver, a restorative, a sanctuary for the moment 
inviolable. How much more would men turn to religion if 
the great composing faiths could be set forth so triumphantly 
in noble and sensible forms as to restore the joy of salvation. 

Reverence and humility are assisted by the arts. Ugly 
buildings together with careless and slipshod orders of serv- 
ice certainly do not assist reverence nor tend to make any- 
body humble. The most of people despise poor workman- 

.52. 



The Mutual Need 

ship. They are not readily led to revere the works of God by 
bungling and imperfect works of man. Perfection they 
respect; carefulness and finish they admire. It is the attempt 
of every work of art to approach perfection in its own 
medium. Its effect is to shame carelessness and imperfection. 
The assistance of various arts can be brought to bear upon 
the worshiper in church in such a way as to help him to be 
reverent and to display to him the larger cause of religion 
over against which his own life may be seen to be unsatis- 
factory. 

To conserve and freshen old truths is a constant task in 
religion. All communication is more or less symbolic. Sym- 
bols addressed to the eye and to the ear add weight to those 
which merely address the mind. Art is representative, that 
is, it presents again and again understood but unrealized 
truths. It refreshes the experience of valuable but neglected 
standards. It revives fundamental but oft-forgotten ideals. 
It succeeds in reaching the inner man. It is penetrative, it 
drives deeper than prose or logic. When we wish to realize 
afresh for our comfort the providing care of God, we do not 
simply state a proposition about it; we read, "The Lord is 
my shepherd." But this is art. The Twenty-third Psalm 
carries farther and means more because it has rhythm and 
imagery as well as beautiful thought. So also, in many direc- 
tions, works of plastic or pictorial art, music, song, succeed 
in communicating the faith where bare prose and cold reason 
are ineffective. 

To seek new light and new truth is an equally constant 
effort of religion. Some form of artistry is always valuable as 
a preparation for new insight. The direct physical effect of 
beauty is to kindle the senses and to increase the imagina- 
tion. This tends to open-mindedness. This lifts people above 
the region of prejudice into a freer air and a more compre- 
hensive outlook. Something of this sort is necessary before 
the word of new truth can secure a hospitable reception. The 
editor of the Outlook has recently said: "There is nothing 
today so essential to the world as its art. Even the prophet 
and teacher of religion cannot avail unless he either has in 

•53- 



Art & Religion 

him the creative power of the artist or can enlist that creative 
power in the service of the ideas he promulgates."* 

Religion needs the arts to quicken resolves. Resolution is 
getting courage up to "the sticking point." Great purposes 
may be formed in the cold and the dark. Not often, however, 
unless that cold and dark be exceptional and critical. They 
are more commonly formed in times of illumination and 
power. The many lesser resolves necessary to keep good 
works and good lives going are assisted by recurrent emo- 
tional experiences. If the emotional life of people is largely 
stimulated outside of religion, it is less liable to be directed 
into worthy or intelligent resolution and practical issue. If 
religious life is unstirred by emotion, it is little likely to 
develop the zeal necessary to overcome the world. 

Religion and art, therefore, need each other. Art without 
religion fails of the highest significance. Religion without art 
is dumb. 

It is unfortunate for the world that the imaginative power 
engendered amongst the devotees of the arts is not more 
directly harnessed to the moral efforts of the times. It is 
unfortunate for art as art not to be stirred by the great con- 
cerns of progressive religion. Writes Mr. Lisle March Phil- 
lipps : "It is the peculiarity of modern art that to an entire 
doubt as to its own aims and principles it unites an extraordi- 
narily highly developed gift of manual dexterity and great 
technical knowledge. It can paint or carve anything it likes 
exactly in the manner it likes; at the same time it does not 
know in the least what to paint or carve, or with what pur- 
pose to paint or carve it."f Religion could tell it. 

Religion, on the other hand, is in these days often crude 
and uncultivated in its forms of expression. It is often 
meager in thought and limited in imagination. It does not 
give people entrance to that abundant life that thrills and 
throbs in the aspirations of humanity as a whole. It is often 
less passionate and less daring in its search for reality than 
art. Stanton Coit has pointed out this dearth of religion 
without the aid of art: "Protestantism in purifying its inner 

* The Outlook, December 17, 1919. 

t Phillipps, "Art and Environment," p. 266. 

.54. 



The Mutual Need 

life has gone far toward destroying its outward form. . . . 
But without expression, and expression in choice and deliber- 
ate form, religion, like the feelings, tends to become stag- 
nant, sour and corrupt."* The religion of the new age will 
sympathize with every circle of spiritual aspirants, and call 
to its service the gifted workers in every field of human 
progress, the artistic no less than the scientific and philan- 
thropic. 

* Stanton Coit, "Social Worship." 



55 



Chapter VI : Corporeality in Religion 

THE word spiritual is one of the most misused terms 
in the religious dictionary. It is commonly used as 
applied to some experience that is largely physical. 
Paul had a difficult time persuading the Corinthians that the 
excitement of speaking with tongues was of a lower spiritu- 
ality than the more temperate gifts. There would appear 
to be something properly called spiritual about those unim- 
passioned virtues, patience, perseverance, meekness, and the 
like, displayed in the cold and the dark, in temptation and 
loneliness, that is far removed from the emotional glow so 
often called spiritual. These are the highest fruits of the 
spirit. 

But the spiritual life as a whole rises from the physical 
life. If it rises at last purely and freely, it none the less rises 
from the swathing fires of sensibility. And the kindling of 
the sense usually requires something tangible, touchable, 
visible. Spirituality is the great and desirable end ; corporeal- 
ity is the necessary means. Truth must be embodied to be 
realized ; it must be incorporated to be understood. No reli- 
gious movement has ever been forceful or popular without a 
rich corporeality. An image, a rite, a creed, a feeling, a feast, 
a vision, or a sacrament has always been used to embody its 
truth. 

Religion has ever struggled to reach a true balance of 
body and spirit. Prophets, in the name of the spirit, have 
over and again led the revolt against idolatry. But the people 
have not been able to reach their heights, they have neither 
understood nor remembered the high word of the prophet 
until a priest has brought it close by a symbol or a sacra- 
ment. Then, alas, the people have loved the symbols and 
the sacraments for their own sakes, until the day of another 
prophetic revolt of the spirit. My sympathies in this entirely 
human story are not only with the prophets, but with priests 

.56. 



Corporeality in Religion 

and people as well. Religion will always require fresh incor- 
poration as well as recurrent reformation. 

Historically, there have been three principal types of 
appeal to the senses — the incorporation of truth by Physical 
Symbols or Acts ; its embodiment in Creeds ; its arousement 
to Crude Excitement. 

The symbols, rites, and sacraments most commonly famil- 
iar are those of the Hebrew and Catholic worship. Our 
modern interest in the Old Testament is so largely centered 
in the prophetic books yet so valuable to us, that we fail to 
appreciate the prominence of the cultus or ritual practice in 
early Jewish religion. Beginning with no other object of 
veneration than the Ark of the Covenant, the Jehovah faith 
rapidly adopted Canaanitish shrines, high places, and sacri- 
ficial practices. The three agricultural feasts, later increased 
to seven, Solomon's Temple, the calves of Jeroboam the son 
of Nebat at Dan and Bethel, the morning and evening 
sacrifices on the open altar in Jerusalem, the great Day of 
Atonement, the processionals and psalm liturgies, with other 
objects and exercises, constituted a rich and impressive 
corporeality in religion without which it could not have 
maintained its life. 

So also the mediaeval Christian church made elaborate 
use of symbols and rites to represent its truths and make 
them impressive. Mediaeval corporeality centered in the 
seven sacraments, around each of which was developed a 
more or less extensive usage of forms, acts, and objects. 
Baptism brought the child into membership with the church. 
Confirmation signalized reception into full communion and 
imparted grace from God. By the Eucharist the spiritual 
nature was nourished to eternal life. In Penance, sins since 
Baptism were healed. Ordination invested the new priest 
with power for the eucharistic miracle. Marriage expressed 
the sanction of the church over the fundamental acts of life. 
Extreme Unction fitted the believer for entrance into 
Heaven. Besides these, many other religious ideas and expe- 
riences were tangibly symbolized or stimulated — penitence 
by the confessional ; the forgiveness of sins by priestly abso- 
lution; the life of personal prayer by the rosary, household 

•57- 



Art & Religion 

images, candles, and incense; the sacrificing spirit of secular 
and religious priests by humble garb and ascetic life; the 
sacrifices of the people by special and seasonal self-denials; 
the dignity and power of the church by the pomp of the 
hierocracy; public worship by magnificent and beautiful 
churches, shrines, statues, paintings, and music ; the unity of 
the church by prayers for the dead and offerings to the 
saints. 

Many other lesser usages and forms were utilized, varie- 
ties of vestments, festivals, processionals, crucifixes and 
banners, chants and offices, prayer books and gestures, sta- 
tions and pilgrimages; all of these being forms of incor- 
porating some experience or faith. Outtopping all, brilliant, 
penetrating, and awful, the celebration of the Mass consti- 
tuted perhaps the most impressive religious act ever devised. 

Against these great Hebrew and Catholic systems of cul- 
tus, the prophets revolted ; Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah 
in the eighth century B. C. ; Luther and Zwingli and others 
in the sixteenth century A. D. But in each case the prophets 
had scarcely done speaking when their spiritual word was 
in turn embodied in a new form of incorporation on a dis- 
tinctly lower plane, but by a process absolutely necessary to 
its perpetuation. We thus come to the second type of 
corporeality in religion, that of creeds and codes. 

The ancient prophets looked on the rites and sacrifices of 
their day, and they sternly said: No, this is not religion, 
this is not what Jehovah requires. We are not saved by feast 
and assembly; we are saved by righteousness. "I desire mercy 
and not sacrifice." They thoroughly moralized religion. 
Then the legalists stepped in and began to define and specify 
the righteousness. They framed the code of Deuteronomy 
to embody, to incorporate, the moral religion of the great 
prophets. Speedily the "Law" became the same kind of 
object of veneration and formality as the golden calves. 
They worshiped the "Law" like an idol. Psalm 119 is a 
song of praise to the "Law." 

So, also, is the story of the Christian reformers. Luther 
thought on the sacraments of the mediaeval church and all 
the gross formalism that had gathered round their adminis- 

.58. 



Corporeality in Religion 

tration. And he said: No, this is not religion. We are not 
saved by these sacramental rites, we are saved by faith. He, 
too, freshly moralized and spiritualized religion. But he was 
no sooner gone than once again the same old story repeated 
itself. His followers and successors began to make lists of the 
faiths by which we are saved. And these were written down 
in the Augsburg Confession, the Heidelburg Catechism, the 
Thirty-nine Articles, and the Westminster Confession of 
Faith. In these formularies there was embodied and incor- 
porated the new spiritual and moralized religion of the 
Reformers. 

But these became the same kind of objects of veneration 
as the images they dispossessed. Probably no statue of the 
Virgin was ever more thoroughly idolized than the West- 
minster Confession of Faith. The attitude toward it is no 
more commendable on the one hand and no more repre- 
hensible on the other than the attitude of the devotees of the 
Mass. It is quite precisely the same, no better, no worse. 

Psychologically, this creedal form of corporeality in reli- 
gion has answered the same purpose as the ritual form. Just 
as the mediaeval priest held up his crucifix, or elevated the 
Host, just so the Calvinist preacher held up his creed; and 
for the same purpose, to bring near that which is far, to com- 
municate the unspeakable, to tell the unutterable, to make 
tangible the faith in the unseen. These Reformation state- 
ments of faith are so complete, so exact, so finished, clear-cut, 
and closed as to partake of the nature of an object. They are 
no less objective than a Catholic image; but not so flexible, 
for you may get anything you put there out of an image but 
not from a creed. They are no less formal than a Catholic 
ceremony, for salvation by faith has often become salvation 
by credence, a thoroughly unspiritual proposal. 

Against these systems of legalism and creedalism, the 
prophets again revolted. The reformation of Jesus was set 
over against the formalism of Pharisaic devotion to the 
"Law," that there might be born a religion more purely of 
the Spirit spiritual. The movement of John Wesley was in 
part a reaction from the hardness and dryness of creedal 
formalism that there might prevail a more inward expe- 

•59- 



Art & Religion 

rience of the Spirit. But here again, as ever before, the high 
prophetic and spiritual word was lowered in the process of 
popularity. The issue displays the third type of corporeality 
in religion, that of crude excitement. 

An account of Jesus' break with the legal religion of his 
day is a long story by itself. Although he spoke of fulfilling 
the "Law," he distinguished between greater and lesser 
commands of the "Law" and did not himself hesitate to 
break lesser laws at the inner dictation of a higher law of 
the Spirit. The outcome of his relation to the "Law" was the 
liberation of the early Christian community from the Mosaic 
codes and the freedom of new life and power by the Spirit. 

But the more violent and bodily manifestations of the 
Spirit soon became the more popular. People began to enjoy 
spiritual possession. They began to seek it, not for self- 
mastery and all the graces of goodness, but for power over 
others and for physical thrills in themselves. They sought 
excitements and ecstasy for their own sakes until they 
appeared to be mad or drunken, uttering incoherent cries 
and speaking with "tongues." 

So, also, John Wesley was disturbed by the formalisms of 
his later day, the creedal religion so like the legal religion 
of Pharisaism. No, he said, we are not saved by these beliefs, 
these agreements to the creeds and confessions. Religion is a 
matter of the heart, a right attitude of spirit, an inward 
knowledge of God and His saving grace, not a thing of the 
mind and its definitions. We must have a new heart and 
know and feel ourselves saved. This was the high word of 
a prophet, protesting against the formalisms of creedal reli- 
gion in the name of the Spirit. 

But it was scarcely said than it, too, like its prototypes, 
descended in order to be understood, to be popular and 
effective. You must feel your religion inwardly. Very well, 
then, go to an old-fashioned camp meeting and you may see 
people feel it. They come home reporting a wonderful spir- 
itual time, when what they have had was a wonderful physi- 
cal time. I am not criticising just here, but only describing. 
The popular camp meeting preacher has never been the quiet 
teacher of spiritual and moral religion, but the brilliant 

• 6o- 



Corporeality in Religion 

orator, who, by vivid imagery, personal magnetism, and a 
kind of physical tour de force could rouse the emotions until 
laughter, tears, and creeping flesh, and half-hysterical speak- 
ing with tongues signalized that ecstatic enjoyment for 
which the people had come and marked another memorable 
"experience" of religion. 

This type of religious corporeality, no less than the ritual 
and creedal types, thus came to be enjoyable and sought 
for its own sake; that is, it was idolized, made an end in 
itself. Its thrilling and emotional character brought together 
throngs of people attracted over and again by its fleshly 
pleasure. This is the factor chiefly responsible for the power 
and rapid spread of this type of religious experience in 
America. The religious bodies which have fostered it and 
utilized it have become the largest churches in the country. 

Besides these three types of physical appeal in religion, 
there are, of course, others, such as Christian Science and 
Apocalypse. The incorporation of religious faith in a creed 
has often been paralleled by the symbolism of a vivid Hope. 
The history of this kind of formalism in religion is long and 
interesting, just now renewed in popular attention to Pre- 
millennial or Second Coming dreams. Its widespread recru- 
desence at this moment is simply another instance of the 
immemorial tendency of human nature to slip from under 
the hard demands of spiritual and moral religion in order to 
enjoy the speculative, the vividly imaginative, and the self- 
approval of passionate attachment to a definitely objective 
religious figure. Followers of this Adventism, instead of 
worshiping God and seeking to display the Spirit of Christ 
in common life, have fashioned the physical figure of a 
vision descending from the clouds, and devote themselves to 
the adoration of this image and to calling upon other men to 
share with them this useless cult. 

Christian Science also must be described as making liberal 
use of corporeality. Like Omar Khayyam, who constantly 
advises us to forget death, thereby indicating that it is the 
one thing he cannot forget, so the Scientist constantly cries 
Spirit, Spirit, all the while blaming the rest of us for our 
refusal to be forever concerned with healing our bodies. 

• 6i- 



Art & Religion 

In the main, however, historic religion has always dis- 
played one or another of the three types of physical appeal 
we are chiefly considering. Some kind of formal element 
religion has always had. I am not objecting to these forms; 
the thing I am objecting to is that we have given them up. 
At least the bulk of present-day Protestantism no longer 
makes any very large or interesting use of them. And this 
is one of the things the matter with us. We do not have 
statues and paintings, nor a noble liturgy; we no longer 
devote ourselves to the great Reformation creedal formu- 
laries; even the Methodists have largely left off the very 
emotionalism that gave them such great power; we are too 
spiritual; we have a religion that won't work except in a 
realm of disembodied spirits. 

Without detailed analysis, and not to anticipate, there 
would seem to be more hope of future improvement along 
the lines of the first type rather than the others. The third 
form, that of Crude Excitement, is too low and primitive 
and never has appealed permanently to the better spirits of 
any people. Moreover, its intellectual content is always too 
meager and shifting and personal to be long utilized on a 
general scale. Which is not to say that at its highest it is 
not to have a powerful place in religion. We still hope that 
there may be many in the succession of Chrysostom, Savona- 
rola, Whitfield, and Moody. 

With the second type, the modern man and his contempt 
of creeds has perhaps too little sympathy. We need creeds, 
but we are properly too humble to complete and compress 
our faith in finished creeds: we want sun parlors and open 
porches in our house of faith, always inviting the visitation 
of newer and later revelations of the Spirit. For after all, 
the humility of agnosticism, so far from being inimical to 
worship, is perhaps its natural beginning. Which is not to say 
that we can get on without slogans and mottoes and working 
statements of common faith. But these can scarcely supply 
the emotional fire necessary to popular religion. The first 
type, however, can be utilized with vastly greater power and 
variety than ordinary Protestantism has ever considered. 

• 62. 



Chapter VII : The Sensational Character of Art 

THE first force of a work of art is its appeal to the 
senses. This is direct and immediate. It is the physi- 
cal effect, almost utterly unescapable whenever there 
is presented to anyone a vigorous composition in color or in 
tone or a strong rhythm of song or of motion. 

Religion which has disdained the arts as sensuous has not, 
therefore, escaped sensationalism. It has developed the sensa- 
tional preacher. He is the man who preaches for a sensuous 
effect. He has greater success usually in getting people to 
come to hear what he has to say than in having something 
worth while to say when they get there. This is not always 
true but it is so very commonly. Our most thoughtful minis- 
ters, those under whose preaching the more serious-minded 
people desire to sit, are little given to sensational preaching. 
Their form is good form but it is not nowadays florid, overly 
dramatic, or eccentric form. They touch upon timely themes 
of the day, not as advertising captions but for real discus- 
sion. Your true and proper sensationalist develops rhetoric, 
gesture, perhaps even hair cuts, newspaper themes, and 
peculiar exercises calculated to rouse interest and produce a 
momentary enjoyment or excitement. 

Sensationalism is necessary for religion, but not this kind. 
I would rather that my boys should be appealed to by the 
noble sensationalism of excellent paintings, brilliant music, 
and noble ritual than by the sensationalism of an evangelist 
crawling about on all fours like a bear show. 

However much we may desire to spiritualize our religion, 
we are not disembodied spirits, we are compact together of 
flesh and spirit — 

"Nor soul helps flesh more now, than flesh helps soul." 

Our view of human nature and of the bodily life is very 
different from that of the Reformation theology. Our new 

• 6 3 - 



Art & Religion 

utilization of the fine arts is to be based upon the new 
psychology and upon the new theology rather than upon 
Calvinism. 

The impulses of the flesh may develop downward. But 
also every human instinct may become the root of a possible 
spiritual virtue. If our task is still partly to mortify the 
flesh, it is also to understand it and use it for good. If spir- 
itual experience is an incorporeal thing, its beginning is 
usually something born in the mystery of the bodily being. 
We do not have the same reasons for fearing the arts that the 
Puritan had, as he did not have our reasons for using them. 

Sensationalism has always been deep and constant in 
human life and in religion and always will be during the 
life of earth. The Hebrew prophets not only used abundant 
imagery in speech but actual physical objects and eccentrici- 
ties of conduct to capture attention and press home their 
message. It seems questionable whether Jesus performed his 
works of healing for this purpose, but hardly questionable 
that his approach to the city on the Day of Palms was a 
form of sensational appeal. It may be said of it, as it may 
be said of other sensational conduct, that it was done for 
effect. Precisely so, for that is the way to be effective. 

Our modern church has rather too little than too much of 
appeal to the senses. It is not sufficiently interesting or suffi- 
ciently thrilling. I do not at all object to the sensational 
methods of the orator or of the evangelist in their proper 
place. But the sensational preacher should not be the pastor 
and teacher of a normal church, large or small. That form of 
appeal to the senses is in the long run neither so effective nor 
so beneficial as quieter forms — music, decoration, architec- 
ture, and liturgy. The oratorical type may be more thrilling 
at the moment but less lasting than the rhythms set going 
by the finer arts. 

The older religions all make more effective use of the 
noble and more commendable forms of appeal to the senses. 
One would not expect to get the following testimony from 
a modern free churchman, but here it is: "The Japanese 
know how to produce effects, they have a sure instinct as to 
the moods in which a person should stand before a temple or 

• 6 4 - 



The Sensational Character of Art 

shrine. Hence they study the approaches to their sacred spots 
almost as much as they do the elaboration of the spots them- 
selves. The Shintoists have their torii or more likely lines 
of torii before each shrine ; the Buddhists love to place their 
houses of worship and meditation in the midst of great trees 
or on the tops of hills which they approach by moss-covered 
staircases of stone. . . . When one has removed his shoes 
and penetrated to the inner shrine and stands on the soft 
matted floor before the image of the Great Buddha, the 
subtle power of idolatry when wedded to high art becomes 
apparent in an unmistakable way. The sense of solemnity, 
of quietness, of peace is in the very air, and there comes to 
one a new sympathy toward those who know only this way 
of consolation." * These beautiful and skillful arrangements 
are planned for their direct and immediate effect upon the 
senses and they are effective. 

Nor would one naturally expect the testimony written by 
one of the most distinguished New England clergymen of 
the nineteenth century, a leader and representative of the 
best thought of his day. Dr. Theodore Munger describes the 
cathedrals and cathedral services of the English Church. And 
then he adds: "Here lies the secret of public worship; we do 
not worship because we feel like it, but that we may feel. 
The feeling may have died out under the pressure of the 
world, but coming together from mere habit, and starting 
on the level of mere custom, we soon feel the stirring of the 
wings of devotion, and begin to rise heavenward on the pin- 
nacles of song and prayer. This is well understood in Eng- 
land, and underlies the much criticised 'Cathedral sys- 
tem.' . . . Here is a mighty fact tremendously asserted; it 
forces a sort of inevitable reverence, not the highest and 
purest indeed, but something worth having. It becomes the 
conservator of the faith, and in the only way in which it can 
be conserved, through the reverent sentiment and poetry of 
our nature. . . . The main value of the established church 
is its lofty and unshaken assertion of the worth of worship — 
keeping alive reverence, which is the mother of morality, 
and furnishing a public environment for the common faith. 

* Cornelius H. Patton in the Congregationalist, September II, 1920, 

.65. 



Art & Religion 

This system of form and worship is kept up because the high- 
est culture and intelligence in England believe in it."* 

Sensationalism of some kind we must have if religion is 
to be effective. It is simply a question of a critical examina- 
tion of the best kinds of appeal to the senses that may be 
properly developed for our own time and temper. Human 
nature is what it is, we must touch it where we may. There 
is not only an attracting power, but an educating power, in 
right devices of artistry carefully and conservatively han- 
dled. I am not disposed to quarrel, though I cannot agree, 
with the objector who does not wish to use any form of 
appeal to the senses. But let not the man who objects to a 
richer development of the fine arts in religion ask approval 
for the coarser arts of rhetoric and eccentricity on the part of 
sensational preachers or the more bungling arts of worship 
current amongst our American churches. 

The question before us, if we are candid, is not whether 
we shall have sensationalism in some sort, but whether we 
shall have it in the more refined and improved forms which 
are at once just as effective and also more natural and 
productive of the healthy emotional life. 

*Munger, "The Freedom of the Faith," pp. 209-211. 



66 



Chapter VIII : A Brief for the Cultus 

EVERY religion maintains a system of religious acts 
and exercises: this is its Cultus. When religion be- 
comes so largely practical as greatly to minimize the 
enjoyment of it, there arise differing forms of Cults, systems 
of self-realization. Every nation which arrives at self-con- 
sciousness does so by some process of "Kultur," the total 
system of patriotic values. Culture is a perennial human 
interest, the enjoyment of the "history of the human spirit." 
Modern Protestantism is becoming weak on the side of its 
Cultus. It needs freshly to consider the necessity and char- 
acter of religious culture. 

First of all, religion is an experience of Divinity before it 
becomes righteousness in the midst of Humanity. The old 
antinomy between action and contemplation is ever with us. 
Fought out many times in the history of religion, it will 
doubtless be fought out many times more. Always the prac- 
tical moralist accuses the religious mystic for his lack of 
interest in development, morality, the timely issues of the 
day. Always the mystic wonders what the practical man is 
driving at, always questions the truth of progress. Always 
he asks concerning mechanical inventions, "Do they culti- 
vate the soul*?" Each party has almost wrecked religion 
many times. Artists and mystics have often made religion 
formal and unmoral, needing reformation. Moralists have 
never been able to establish and conserve their new systems 
without the aid of artistry and of worship. 

It is a great mistake to regard a system of ethics or a code 
of laws merely from the point of view of utility. It is rather 
more true to regard moral systems as the means to religious 
ends. Religion is the end, morality the means, rather than 
contrariwise. The whole history of culture, religious, ethical, 
and artistic, testifies this. We have just fought a great war 
for our faith that the State with its "Kultur" is secondary 

• 6 7 - 



Art & Religion 

and the fortunes of persons primary. Persons are the ends 
for which the State exists, not means to be sacrificed to the 
god of the State. 

Even codes of laws reveal an aesthetic interest. The ani- 
mus of many regulations, not only in primitive sacred law, 
but in modern statute law, is not merely utilitarianism, but 
an interest in orderliness for its own sake, good form, 
decorum, beauty. The world of the arts in toto is not a 
practical world. It expresses and reproduces experiences of 
the spirit, leisure for which has been purchased by the active 
life. The artist is not interested primarily in activity, or in 
the results of activity. His interest is personal or universal. 
No great novel, for instance, holds our attention by a recital 
of accomplishments. Even the stories of adventure and bold 
achievement care not so much for the value of the achieve- 
ment as for the moving portrayal of the hero's stout heart. 
The novel is not interested in what a man does but only in 
what at last he is. 

Religion is not religion unless it is primarily the culti- 
vation of the divine experience, fostering the culture of the 
soul as its supreme end. 

Secondly, all religions have so regarded themselves, and 
have sought and have cultivated the religious experience. 
They may or may not have had a good effect upon morals, 
they have invariably reproduced for themselves the purely 
religious experience. The survey of these facts is the source 
of the oft-repeated assertion that man is incurably religious. 
Every historic religion has insisted that life was not all work, 
but also worship. Even the most prophetic periods in reli- 
gious history have speedily established some form of Cultus, 
some awareness of self in the approved role, some system of 
enjoying the ideal of action set forth in the prophetic word. 
No religion has become so thoroughly moralized as to lose 
its sense of the value of the religious experience. Even the 
Ethical Culture Society, not claiming to be religious at all, 
by its very style and title publishes its belief in the "culture" 
of its standards, not merely in the prosaic discussion of them. 
That is, it seeks to bathe itself in an experience of contem- 

• 68- 



A Brief for the Cultus 

plation as well as to inform itself concerning the rights and 
wrongs of human action. 

The purely religious experience is, of course, never wholly 
divorced from the moral ideal. Even devotion to a Cultus 
which seems to include no moral laws involves a moral 
choice. Every religious experience thus contains moral im- 
plications. In Christianity, the moral ideal is very completely 
involved in the religious faith. So the culture of religion 
includes the culture of the accompanying ideals of conduct. 
This is only an added reason for that culture, for right atti- 
tudes of the spirit toward problems of the practical life need 
to be not merely discussed but cultivated. Great moral prin- 
ciples and precepts need not only to be formulated and pro- 
claimed but also to be viewed imaginatively, attended to and 
inculcated. 

Thirdly, for assisting the reproduction of the desired reli- 
gious experience, all religions have used some form of Ap- 
paratus, some Ritual. No social, spiritual experience has 
been maintained without external and formal aids. Merely 
getting together is the first of these aids. Merely keeping 
silent is a ritual in itself, and by no means the least formal 
or difficult exercise. The Society of Friends in devising this 
usage did so not because they would minimize spiritual cul- 
ture, but precisely because they would magnify it. The sing- 
ing of a hymn is both easy and informal compared to a pub- 
lic exercise of silence. The Quakers, incidentally, developed 
other and powerful ritual forms, such as peculiar dress, 
speech, and manners. So whether the Apparatus used be 
simple and bare, or whether it be a highly elaborate drama 
utilizing all the fine arts, it is, nevertheless, Apparatus for 
the purpose of assisting the culture of the religious expe- 
rience. 

Fourthly, these exercises might in the main be classified as 
religious acts in contrast to those doings which might be 
called moral acts. All human action is in some sense moral, 
it has to do with human relations. There would appear to 
be some elevated persons capable of casting upon all the 
acts of their common life some religious significance. Yet for 
the sake of clearness we are justified in making distinctions, 

• 6 9 - 



Art & Religion 

and in holding that there is such a thing as a religious act, 
an exercise of the human faculties, whether with or without 
bodily action, such as is something more than mere thought, 
and something other than can be described in terms of 
human or moral relations, though it may include these. 
Prayer is such an act. The singing of a hymn might be such 
an act. The joint recital of a creed is such an act. Swearing 
allegiance to a moral program may be such an act. The ad- 
ministration of a sacrament and participation in it are such 
acts. All such acts, of however great or small physical expres- 
sion, are more or less religious according to the inner and 
real participation. The sum total of the public religious acts 
of a religious society or of a community constitutes its 
Cultus. 

Fifthly, some system for the culture of the religious life, 
maintained by the exercises of a Cultus, is necessary to the 
perpetuation of religion. To begin with, this is religion, this 
is the experience of divine communion for which the moral 
life is only the means. It is this Cultus, moreover, which 
makes religion popular because enjoyable. Moral tasks are 
irksome, the requirements of duty are severe, the vicissi- 
tudes of life are often painful, the record of achievement is 
usually unsatisfying. Only an experience of religion, only 
the committal of all to God and the fresh vitality by Him 
bestowed can yield the highest joys. I know that many peo- 
ple come to church out of habit and some out of duty; I 
believe that most come for the joy of it. Whether the Cultus 
consists of fervid, free, and easy recitals of conversion expe- 
riences ; or of a simple, dignified service of hymns, readings, 
and prayers, together with a strong and enthusing sermon; 
or follows the canon of the Mass, it is the emotional lift that 
the people come for. 

This enjoyable experience is necessary to the life of reli- 
gion, not only as a perpetual attraction, but as an unfailing 
source of vitality in the personal lives of the worshipers, 
and vitality in the life of their common cause. Moral tasks 
are not only irksome but exhausting. The religious expe- 
rience recreates the power for them. In the long run, the 
energy for reforming society and evangelizing the world 

• 70- 



A Brief for the Cultus 

comes from the continued exercises of devotion which con- 
stitute the religious Cultus. 

Sixthly, modern religion has a deficient Cultus. If our 
ordinary American churches had in themselves sufficiently 
supplied human need in this direction, there need not have 
been developed the so-called Cults. We have only ourselves 
to blame that we have given cause for these one-sided move- 
ments by our own one-sidedness. The intense modern inter- 
est in the moralizing of religion has undoubtedly swung 
the pendulum far away from the culture of religion. We 
are not yet through with this moralizing process, in some 
ways only beginning it. The social gospel is the cry of the 
hour, and rightly so. It needs no denial of this to sound a 
warning respecting the other side of religion. Indeed, secu- 
lar sociologists themselves are in these days beginning to 
revalue the instructive, holding, dignifying, stabilizing 
worth of public religion. Meanwhile, the best Protestant 
minds are so engrossed in the all but overwhelming demands 
for the- development of a new and more thoroughgoing 
Christian morality, that little attention has been given to 
the cultural promulgation of the principles and standards 
already achieved. We need a bigger and better Cultus. We 
need a more successful Apparatus of self-realization and of 
God-realization in these times. 

Moreover, the culture of religion relates itself always, 
not merely to exercises in contemporary moral conviction, 
but also, or perhaps rather chiefly, to those timeless inter- 
ests of human life, those forces and factors of human nature 
and divine nature which are so largely the same in every 
time and place. The bulk of the literature of the world re- 
volves not about the innumerable divergencies of times and 
places, but about a few great themes of universal human 
experience. If this be true in the spiritual life of humanity 
as expressed in its letters, religion cannot do otherwise than 
take account of this testimony and this perennial human 
need. It is this fact which makes it possible for religion to 
develop a series of exercises which will set forth its faith 
and revivify its convictions and apply its solutions re- 

•71- 



Art & Religion 

specting these few great themes and problems of human 
existence. 

It is commonly admitted that in the average Protestant 
worship, the chief dependence for whatever heightened expe- 
rience or afflatus is enjoyed, is upon the sermon. The sermon 
is becoming more and more inadequate to the task. As the 
level of education in the community rises, and especially the 
level of cultivation in the arts and letters, this is the more 
true. Why depend upon the art of rhetoric alone, when other 
arts also afford rich resources of inspiration*? And it is the 
experience of many that to carry in the sermon the burden 
of the emotional effect often injures its usefulness as instruc- 
tion and its candor as discussion. If it is to inspire, it cannot 
also sufficiently inform. Turn about, its task of instruction 
gets often in the way of its function of emotional uplift. It 
would not necessarily minimize the sermon if there could be 
also a highly successful and moving religious exercise. We 
have too commonly regarded the other exercises as prepara- 
tion for the sermon. It is possible to make them complete 
and wonderful in themselves. 

Even to regard them as preparatory to the sermon de- 
mands a vast improvement. The average exercise of public 
worship today constitutes neither a finished Cultus by itself 
nor a pertinent, skillful, and dramatic preparation for the 
sermon. The sermon, at its height, as a great prophetic utter- 
ance, is sufficient unto itself, and needs no considerable 
preparation or outside assistance. But we would do well to 
recognize the irregularity of the prophetic gift. It is an 
extremely conceited and presumptuous claim, which is fre- 
quently asserted, that the preacher's voice is regularly the 
voice of the prophet. The words teacher and priest suggest 
a more humble and accurate description of what the min- 
ister is in the usual services for public worship. But if this 
be true, it is fatuous to allow the most of all conscious and 
subconscious judgments about this matter to fall under the 
category of prophecy. It is better to aspire to be a good 
teacher and priest than constantly to assume the role of 
prophet while the people for long-continued periods suffer 
the dearth of any genuinely prophetic word, and at the same 

• 72- 



A Brief for the Cultus 

time are poorly fed and faintly stirred by a bungling and 
amateur exercise of devotion. These times of instability need 
amongst other things a more rich and full and dependable 
presentation of the rounded and complete message of the 
Christian faith than can be derived from the average 
sermonizer. 

They certainly need, also, a more quiet and informing 
presentation of truth than can possibly come from the highly 
picturesque and rhetorical style of utterance which so often 
characterizes the exceptionally brilliant preacher. The cul- 
ture of the spiritual life is insufficiently assisted by the ordi- 
nary sermon ; by the extraordinary sermon, it is often misled, 
neglected, or directed into incidental and spasmodic consid- 
erations. Moreover, almost by definition the culture of the 
spiritual life is partly a matter of self-energy, and self- 
realization, and self-devotion, and not altogether a thing 
that can be done for you. The most stimulating sermon in 
the world leaves much to be desired as the only method of 
the Cultus. Response, meditation, participation on the part 
of the worshiper are more profound and beneficial than fitful 
excitement. Silence and composure, self -exercise and spirit- 
ual effort are greatly lacking in our American life. We are 
little practiced in the tutelage of the spiritual faculties and 
the discipline of the spiritual powers. 

Adequate provision for these things needs something 
richer, something at once more stable and developing than 
brilliant sermonizing. Those churches whose vitality seems 
to depend upon a succession of exceptional orators are not 
well-grounded institutions. As a matter of fact, they are 
disappearing one by one, losing out to the slow but sure 
competition of a more churchly and broader based program 
of spiritual culture. 

Seventhly, objections to the Cultus have been largely 
based upon its alleged nonmoral and unchanging character. 
There is undoubtedly a tendency for anything admittedly an 
end in itself to disregard its relations to other desirable ends. 
Every system of Cultus has displayed this tendency, the 
evangelical types no less than the ritual forms. Enjoyed for 
its own sake it easily becomes an oft-repeated celebration, 

•73- 



Art & Religion 

its own justification, withdrawn from the concerns of 
practical life. 

The first thing to say is that in a measure this is not only 
good but also right. One sometimes wonders why the wor- 
shiper in the church, accused of fostering his own pleasure 
and failing in the application of his faith to the affairs of 
institutional and public life, does not sometimes turn and 
demand that the accusers give him a little peace while they 
direct their efforts against the actor and the painter and the 
singer, and other devotees of the spiritual life. From one 
point of view, people have at least as good a right to enjoy 
the worship of God in a church as they have to enjoy a play, 
or an opera in the theater. It seems not to occur to anyone 
to accuse the regular attendant upon the productions of 
chamber music of being uninterested in social settlements 
or prohibition campaigns. It were better for religion not to 
be ashamed but to glory in the Cultus for its own sake. 

In the next place, it is not true historically that the Cultus 
has been nonmoral. The primitive priest and the typical 
priest has been always a lawgiver and teacher. The cults 
which come nearest to being unmoral are not those most 
highly elaborated but rather the modern non-Christian 
movements centered in narrow forms of evangelicalism or 
in revived forms of apocalyptic hope. No religious move- 
ment is weaker ethically than the present-day revival of 
Messianism, centering its religious experience about the 
expectancy of world renewal by the literal reappearance of 
Christ in physical form. Of commendable piety on its reli- 
gious side, it is deadening in its moral effects. It tends defi- 
nitely to the withdrawal of its devotees from the strenuous 
human effort to improve society and all its institutions by 
the divine powers given to men to these ends. 

The other objection is that the Cultus historically has 
been too unyielding to change. Two things are to be said 
concerning this charge. 

The objection is not really against the use of forms but 
rather against the premises of thought behind the forms. 
Perhaps forms need to be changed, certainly the content of 
ideas in them needs to be changed, but not the use of forms. 

.74. 



A Brief for the Cultus 

In another chapter I am presenting some facts which display 
the historical influence of the artist, that is, the formalist, 
as a prophet of change. That whole argument might well be 
inserted in this brief at this point. 

The other thing to say is that the charge is partially ad- 
mitted and claimed to be valuable rather than otherwise. 
Surely at a time like this, so confused in morals, so lacking 
in generally accepted ethical standards, the stabilizing value 
of any great system of Cultus is not to be underestimated. 
The prevalent individualism in ethics needs no encourage- 
ment but rather a tighter rein. The weakness of liberalism 
is its divisiveness. If the best moral aspiration of the day 
could be denned, crystallized, and promulgated in a great 
system of Cultus, its aims could be given far more practical 
effect in the national life. No liberal wishes to curtail the 
liberty of prophesying, but the voice of prophecy is by very 
definition the voice of protest, the cry for change. The very 
name of Protestantism declares its one weakness. Can the 
permanent nurture of the spiritual life be founded upon 
protest alone? 

Morality is always suffering the dilemma of the old and 
the new. The conservation of the elder values, and the 
admission of the newer lights seem always to be contending 
factors. It is certainly no solution of the dilemma simply to 
choose sides. Some day concrete religion must solve the 
problem of being and becoming. 

It is a practical no less than a philosophical question. 
Cannot the lovers of liberty and the claims of prophecy ad- 
mit the necessity of establishing for at least a brief space 
from time to time, a system of dogmas, set forth and taught 
for the guidance and the stability of customary life? Can- 
not the conservatives, who fear change, be willing to incor- 
porate amongst these dogmas themselves some principle of 
change that will serve to guarantee freedom and introduce 
the desirable new? A world fixed and set by the culture of 
old experience is stagnant and tyrannical. But a world per- 
petually agitated by discordant voices of change is a no less 
unhappy state in which to live. 

We value the Old Testament prophets and applaud their 

•75- 



Art & Religion 

protestantism. We take sides with them against the immor- 
ality of the ancient Hebrew Cultus. It is, nevertheless, a 
profound mistake not to value that Cultus. Without it there 
had been nothing to protest against. It was the establish- 
ment, the crystallized experience, the holding, stabilizing 
force, which unified and centralized the national life. If it 
taught the wrong things, it taught something. If it resisted 
change, it was at least a power of resistance. It made of 
the people of Israel a powerful nation and did not leave 
them in the half -barbarous life of contending tribesmen. 
So always, if every historic Cultus has been chargeable with 
formalism and conservatism, it has also been chargeable 
with unification, cohesion, racial integration, and national 
survival. 

Becoming is nothing if there is no Being behind it. The 
Cultus is the perennial Background of Change. 

There is another fact of current life which needs notice 
in this connection. If our churches are in these days under- 
interested in anything that might properly be called a 
Cultus, preferring rather everything that has to do with the 
timely issues of practical life, this condition is vaguely un- 
satisfactory to the flower of our youth. 

If the young are the great adventurers into the unknown 
and untried paths of the new, they are also generally occu- 
pied with the discovery of the precious treasures in the 
inherited culture of civilized life. Without exactly knowing 
it, they come back from college and find the churches lack- 
ing in culture. They are offended at the crudity of the 
speech, manners, and forms of religious life. Having found 
delight in the artistic and literary deposit as opened up to 
them in the schools, they find no comparable satisfactions 
in the religious world. 

If the schools have failed to give them this delight, then 
the schools have failed. If they have succeeded, it is a loss 
to the society of the time if that early prompting to culture 
is submerged and inhibited in the practical world. Or, if it 
is not lost, it turns for sustenance away from the churches 
to theaters, or clubs and other secular centers of the culti- 
vated life. I have failed to be clear at all, if it is not by this 

• 7 6. 



A Brief for the Cultus 

time apparent that Cultus and Culture have deeper con- 
nections than a common derivative root word. 

Eighthly, a modern Cultus is possible. We have perhaps 
too easily assumed that it is no longer possible to devise any- 
thing in ritual comparable to the great systems of Cultus in 
times past. We think we are not sufficiently naive, that we 
are too introspective and analytical and unchildlike to share 
the pageantry of a great celebration. Our enactments are 
dramatic and not ritualistic. We look upon pageants rather 
than ourselves participating in the original primary human 
actions of which pageants are only the pale representations. 

Nevertheless, I should like to have walked in the Pan- 
athenaic Procession. I should like to have made the dev- 
otees' progress through the great pylons from lower and 
larger court to higher and smaller court, and on so far as 
I could go toward the last and inmost shrine of such a 
temple as that of Medhinet Habu. Certainly it appears dif- 
ficult to conceive of man, thoroughly modernized, as ever 
again capable of enjoying the breathless delay and anxious 
expectancy with which the reappearance of the high priest 
on the great Day of Atonement was awaited by those who 
stood in the court of Israel celebrating their most solemn 
sanctification and renewal. 

We seem to be incapable of so keen a feeling as the 
hazard of life, the danger of divinity, or the peril of godless- 
ness. We enjoy these things only in reproductions of the 
drama or of the imagination. Yet I am not content with 
Miss Jane Harrison, unless I misread her, to describe the 
history of these things as the story of the perennial neces- 
sity for ritual to become merely art. Is there no way to com- 
plete the circle by utilizing the arts to bring us again to 
hours of noble worship *? Despite the fact that we may be no 
longer childlike, that we seem to be such inveterate self- 
observers, I believe it to be possible to proceed in the direc- 
tion of a genuine Cultus. 

But we must begin very humbly and simply. It is easy to 
become artificial and bizarre. There are three open oppor- 
tunities for improvement and growth. 

Quietly and naturally we can improve our ordinary pub- 

•77- 



Art & Religion 

lie worship in many ways — by simpler, nobler, and more 
beautiful church buildings; by altogether more pertinent 
and better disposed religious music ; by high points of stimu- 
lus in the placing of a painting, a window, or a statue if we 
can afford it; by a more unified and climactic order of ser- 
vice ; by patient attention at many little points in the admin- 
istration of the sacraments ; by better prepared prayers ; and 
by more instruction for securing spiritual effort and reverent 
expectancy on the part of the people. 

Another opportunity is that of making the most of special 
occasions. In almost every church and community through 
the years, there are occasions and days which can be 
more effectively celebrated, special union services between 
churches, community recitals, community discussions, pa- 
triotic meetings, festivals of the church year, and other such 
like. These will afford many a chance for some simple com- 
mon recital, mutual avowal, or even dramatic representa- 
tion. 

In this connection, we should much more frequently call 
upon musicians and composers for especially prepared 
works. The organist of a great city church should be capable 
of preparing fresh music of his own writing for responsive 
services at the Christmas, Lenten, Easter, and other seasons, 
for memorial or dedication exercises, services in which some 
of the great themes and experiences of the spiritual life 
might be set forth with moving power by the combination 
of all the arts. We are undoubtedly entering upon a kind of 
life in which the community consciousness will play a great 
part and demand its appropriate and adequate expression by 
these means. 

In addition to these, there should be many more experi- 
ments and efforts in the way of small groups and classes 
gathered for the culture of the spiritual life, such as Mrs. 
Porter's Discussion Clubs in New Haven. Perhaps we 
should all copy and extend the Methodist class meeting 
system. Special services for the unwell and the tired may 
be held in churches strong enough to provide a varied min- 
istry. There should be week-day hours of prayer in the open 
church. Our larger and better Protestant churches have 

• 7 8. 




CARVED OAK TRIPTYCH 



The Supper at Emmaus," for Emmanuel Church, Baltimore, Maryland. 
Waldemar H. Ritter, Architect; I. Kirchmayer, Sculptor. 



A Brief for the Cultus 

already revived the older custom of keeping the church 
building open and ready for meditation and prayer all the 
days of the week. This will be greatly extended in the early 
future. 

Moreover, there is need for a new prayer book. The modern 
cults with their manuals of private spiritual exercise and 
devotion have not made great inroads upon the bodies of 
Christians furnished with a book of prayers. It is to be hoped 
that soon some group of gifted and progressive leaders will 
begin the preparation of a Christian's Book of Devotion, 
which will contain a modern guide to Bible reading, a col- 
lection of prayers new and old, and perhaps other material. 
Meanwhile every family may be urged to possess a copy of 
the Book of Common Prayer; or "Prayers, Ancient and 
Modern," selected by Mary Tileston; or some other collec- 
tion of prayers and proposals for meditation. 

These suggestions by no means exhaust the possibilities. 
They are merely intended to intimate some simple and for 
the most part modest ways in which it is possible to begin an 
extended revival of the culture of religion. Let anyone 
utilize them all, and he will have a noble Cultus already. 
Whatever else hereafter may be, no one can tell. The temper 
of the new age will be far different from that just past. It 
will find itself and express itself according to its own genius. 
But there are already many signs, unless we fall backward 
into discordant and chaotic life generally, that the new age 
will seek to cultivate its ideals and hopes in more brilliant 
forms than we now use, and inculcate its standards by a 
more effective mode of religious education, and devote itself 
to enjoying the "history of the human spirit" and the pres- 
ence of the Divine Spirit by usages and forms that will 
constitute a great historic Cultus. 



• 81 



Chapter IX : Prophet and Priest 

TEIE conflict between priest and prophet is as old as 
history and it is not yet settled. Priests and prophets 
are always at odds. They always have been and 
they are now. 

Priests have always stood for order and stability, the 
maintenance of things as they are; prophets have always 
produced disorder and change and hoped for things as they 
should be. Priests are conservers and instructors; prophets 
are radicals and destructors. 

The conflict goes on because we have not yet learned to 
conserve the ancient and at the same time take on the new; 
we have as yet failed to solve the dilemma of stability and 
progress. We think we believe in progress, but usually resent 
it when we see it, for it always hits us at the sorest spot, it 
always strikes where we least expect. We assume that we 
have an open ear to new teaching, but when it comes, we 
cry out in dismay: Oh, yes, I believe in progress, but I had 
no idea you meant that. I can't accept that. We go on to 
complain of the new doctrine: Why, that subverts every- 
thing. Where are we, anyway, if that is adopted*? But that 
is precisely what prophecy is, some new doctrine that is 
strong enough to subvert everything. 

There was in an ancient day a priest by the name of 
Amaziah at the famous sanctuary of Bethel. His king and 
patron, Jeroboam II, was strong and successful. Commerce 
was good, the arts of life were advanced, religious observ- 
ance was popular and elaborate. Amaziah conducted the 
burnt offerings and peace offerings, taught the children to 
observe the fast days, instructed the people in the moral 
law, and passed to and fro in the solemn assemblies. He was 
evidently a faithful priest. Then along came Amos the 
prophet and criticised everything. He said that the poor were 
being oppressed and the needy exploited and that the women 

•82- 



Prophet and Priest 

were too luxurious. Moreover, he claimed that the Lord 
had no delight in their priestly offerings, anyway, and would 
not smell in their solemn assemblies. Yea, rather, for all 
their sins the Lord would destroy the house of Jeroboam and 
lay waste the land. This was more than Amaziah could en- 
dure, so he "sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos 
hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of 
Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words. Also, 
Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away 
into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy 
there : but prophesy not again any more at Bethel : for it is 
the king's chapel, and it is the king's court." To this Amos 
replied that the Lord had sent him and proceeded with his 
denunciation. 

This story is a typical picture of prophecy and its obstruc- 
tion by the priesthood. The priest teaches personal and indi- 
vidual matters; the prophet carries these up to some na- 
tional or universal view for fresh examination and revision. 
The priest seeks the prevalence and power of present morals 
and customs as they are maintained by rites and forms ; the 
prophet breaks present forms to lay foundations for a better 
morality that shall be. The priest relies on some ancient 
sanction for his sacred authority; the prophet claims the 
authority of immediate inspiration. 

It is a small and inadequate conception of the prophet to 
regard him as one who foretells events. The true prophet 
is not concerned with foretelling events, but with foretelling 
the destiny of the new view of life which he has received. 
The true prophet receives the divine inspiration of some 
great new truth, some new way of looking at life. Thence- 
forth life as it is appears wrong to him; he criticises and 
condemns it. He does not know future events. But what he 
does know is that somewhere, sometime, all things, govern- 
ment and commerce, morals public and private, must come 
round to his idea, must square themselves with his new truth. 
He throws his word into the stream of history and lets it 
work. This is what Elijah did, and Amos and Jesus, Luther 
and Wendell Phillips. 

We have thought of prophets as religious leaders whose 

•8 3 - 



Art & Religion 

inspiration was acknowledged and whose word was received. 
This is because we look back so far on the most of them, 
and also because it is hard to believe they have anything in 
common with us nowadays. The fact is that, at the time, the 
prophet is almost always unpopular and rejected. The New 
Testament honors the Old Testament prophets, but in their 
own days the Old Testament prophets were not so honored. 
Jesus often thought of himself as a prophet and had the 
usual prophetic experience — "A prophet is not without 
honor, save in his own country." And out of his own bitter 
experience of rejection he thought of the prophets of old 
as he wept over the great city, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou 
that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent 
unto thee." 

Priests are teachers of the laws of life as they are received, 
upholders of the current customs and practices, mainstaying 
traditions, conservative because their business is to conserve 
the good that men already have. They are therefore none 
too friendly to prophets who protest and oppose tradition, 
who try to break down forms in the name of inner and 
spiritual light. The appearance of the prophet has always 
troubled the priest. What shall he do*? If the prophet begins 
to gain popular support the priest declares that he is crazy. 
This has often been done and is not unlike the suggestion 
which President Hadley says that "hard-headed business 
men make regarding poets, professors and other idealists 
'That they have a bee in their bonnets.' " If this ridicule 
does not succeed, the prophet is persecuted. Amaziah the 
priest ordered Amos out of Bethel; Isaiah probably died a 
martyr to his prophetic truth; Jeremiah was tried for his 
life in the royal court in Jerusalem ; Socrates was poisoned ; 
John Huss was burned alive; Luther was hounded and 
excommunicated; and more than one professor has been 
driven from his university chair. Yet the word of true 
prophets has prevailed and is prevailing. People are always 
looking back to old prophets to honor those that are dead, 
and failing to see the live ones present with them. 

And yet — there is something to say for the priest. If the 
true prophet often suffers persecution and martyrdom, he 

• 8 4 - 



Prophet and Priest 

usually receives, at last, superior honors. The priest is never 
likely to receive either. When the prophetical storm has 
passed and the church and state are strewn with wreckage, 
the priest must take up the slow, hard work of reconstruc- 
tion; he must gather up the fragments of old and new and 
make a practical building. When the final issue of anti- 
slavery prophecy had been settled by the Civil War, there 
remained the wreckage of the old South, and long pains of 
reconstruction were necessary before the new South began 
to appear. When the great prophets of the Reformation 
pulled down the whole structure of the mediaeval church in 
several nations, someone had to go to work to build another 
structure that would preserve the results and pass them on 
to other generations. This has proved to be so hard a task 
that the priests of Protestantism have not yet devised as 
good a system for conserving sanctions and standards as the 
old one was. 

The work of the priest is a difficult one. He must take the 
new truths of the prophet and the great general principles 
laid down and he must study and apply them to particular 
conduct. He must tell people just what the great principle 
means in their homes, in their work, and in personal morals. 
He must say what is right and wrong in each special instance 
in such a way as to induce general agreement. The prophet 
disintegrates old standards; the priest must integrate new 
ones; and that is a very hard thing to do. It is disastrous 
to life to be all the while in a prophetic whirlwind. Society 
needs a hundred years or so of quietness and stability to 
make civilization possible. 

The Priest is a Teacher. But how shall he teach the 
youth, if there be no general agreement about right and 
wrong which can be conserved and maintained for a season? 
How shall he instruct if there be no structure to put in*? 
How shall childhood be guided and builded up into the 
right if you cannot say: This is the truth accepted among 
us, these are the standards society holds, this is the way you 
should go, walk ye in it? The priest is not therefore to be too 
seriously blamed for becoming a dogmatist. This is the func- 
tion we have assigned him. He must integrate and construct, 

• 8 5 - 



Art & Religion 

collect and sort and arrange his materials, and build a habit- 
able house of truth. He can, of course, do much more than 
priests ever have done to prevent the tyranny of old dogmas. 
He can say at the end of every list of standards or ideals: 
Moreover, it is one of the tenets of our system to be always 
expecting change and always working for progress ; it is one 
of the articles of our faith to make earnest with the doctrine 
of the continued revelations of the divine Spirit. This, too, 
is a dogma, but one that turns the flank of the dilemma of 
prophet and priest. 

Yet the solution is easier in theory than in practice. 
Protestant ministers are expected to be both priest and 
prophet, but few succeed. Many are greatly to be blamed 
for becoming no less priestly, dogmatic, and crystallized 
than the Catholic type. Others have become so individualis- 
tic and prophetic as gravely to threaten the whole stability 
of Protestantism. Witness the independent movements of 
theater and hall in every large city, the prevalence of timely 
topics in innumerable pulpits, the many popular preachers 
who center attention and devotion upon themselves to the 
weakening of the institution, and, in general, the failure to 
recognize the priestly element in the function of the modern 
clergyman. It is not for social reformers and zealots to be 
too severe in their condemnation of men who know what 
they are doing and why, when they hold steadily to their 
humble priestly task of teaching the youth standards and 
ideals as they are, while waiting for the prophets to agree 
among themselves about the faiths and works that are next 
to engage human devotion and energy. 

The Priest is a Spiritual Adviser. As such, he has to do 
not so much with those timely and social questions which are 
the interest of the prophet as with the timeless concerns of 
the individual life which are essentially the same whether 
the person live here or in Mars, in one age or another — 
birth, death, and the beating sun, and the arts of gracious 
living. With what spirit and fortitude shall a man be pre- 
pared to meet loss and defeat, sickness and death, and every 
evil hour'? With what spiritual mastery shall a man control 

• 86 • 



Prophet and Priest 

the experiences of temptation and success and richest With 
what faith and hope shall a man envision his destiny'? 

Admonition and exhortation, comfort, the resolution of 
doubt, the healing of the inly blind, these all are the uses of 
a good priest and true. He is friend and fatherly confessor, 
counselor, guide, and man of God, bringing near the fresh 
peace and joy of the timeless and eternal world. He invites 
the strong to bear the infirmities of the weak, and in his 
church provides them a definite and ever ready medium for 
that ministry, varied, adaptable, and permanent. He carries 
to lonely, sick, and sorrowing persons the assurances of the 
faith, assurances, believe me, out of my own humble expe- 
rience, more than doubly strong because not merely his own 
and personal but rather of his office, representing the strong 
body of believers and loyal workers behind him and around 
him in the church, whose servant he is, of whose word and 
faith he is but the mouthpiece : assurances received also be- 
cause conveyed by one set apart to ponder holy things and 
pray for all souls. This makes very respectable the quiet 
men who prefer to give themselves to this sacred calling 
rather than to become sensational preachers or meddling 
politicians. 

The Priest is a Pastor and Bishop. He is a shepherd and 
overseer, keeping watch and ward of the flock committed 
to his care. He is an evangelist, seeking the wandering and 
the weary. His business is the cure of souls. Always at the 
background of his consciousness is concern for the growth 
and development of persons. He sees others as they cannot 
see themselves and longs to help them correct their faults 
and enlarge their ideals. His interest is, like the novelist's, 
in his characters ; an artistic interest not in what a man does 
but in what he becomes, not in what he accomplishes but in 
what at last he is. But his interest is not aloof as is the novel- 
ist's, for it is sometimes given to him to play, not fate, but 
divinity in the human story around him. More often than 
you suppose, a minister will decide some practical question, 
not according to expediency or organizational efficiency, but 
according to the yield of character influence upon the persons 
involved. 

• 8 7 - 



Art & Religion 

The Priest is an Artist. He is charged with the develop- 
ment and maintenance of the cultus, the offices of public 
worship, marriage and burial, and the administration of 
sacraments. He addresses not the mind alone but the feel- 
ings and the imagination. He uses the arts of speech and of 
ritual to aid in the reproduction of spiritual experience. 
With the problems of public worship other chapters are 
concerned. Here may well come in a word respecting the 
more private functions of the priest as artist, as on the occa- 
sions of marriage and burial. 

A ceremony of the priest is precisely like a poem or other 
work of art in that it enables us to say to each other what 
we should otherwise leave unsaid or conceal. One of my 
friends who sent his only son to the war has written a little 
book of very beautiful sonnets setting forth some of the 
noblest feelings and faiths I have seen expressed. He would 
hardly bring himself to say baldly and nakedly in bare prose 
and open statement what he has told in the poems. He 
would feel an immodesty in such an utter exposure of his 
deepest heart. The form of the verse is a cloak partly con- 
cealing the passion beneath, yet enabling its release and 
expression. So are we all reticent, bearing in silence what we 
cannot speak save with tears, not wishing to wear our hearts 
upon our sleeves. The ceremony speaks for us. We cannot 
utter all or a part of that majesty of respect we feel for a 
human life that has left its house of clay, or that solicitude 
and love with which we would follow lives newly wedded, 
nor can we willingly keep silence. The ceremony speaks for 
us, its cloak of form at once concealing and expressing our 
inner passion. 

So, also, every other cultural exercise of religion is a work 
of art and the priest is an artist, not only in presentation 
like the actor and singer, but in origination and creation as 
sculptor and composer. His work should be approached with 
the same canons of appreciation as that of other artists nor 
should there be anything falsely sacrosanct about him to 
ward off judgment on the success or failure of his artistry. 

All these things may be regarded as priestly functions 
without any claim to peculiar power or authority, and with- 

• 88- 



Prophet and Priest 

out any. denial of the typical Protestant doctrine of the 
priesthood of all believers. They might perhaps as well be 
defined under the terms pastor or minister. But they are 
certainly not prophetic functions. The term minister in its 
specific meaning includes the prophetic. I do not favor the 
official designation of the clergyman as priest, pleading only 
a more general popular sense of the labors, responsibilities, 
and values suggested by that name. 

The pastor of a modern church must be jealous of his 
work and word as a prophet, a severe and perilous calling. 
It is disastrous for religion if the voices for social justice, 
the prophetic demands for righteousness in all departments 
of life, be found chiefly outside rather than inside the insti- 
tution of religion, and we are, alas, close to this disaster. 
Yet some of these voices are not worthy of attention when 
they lightly estimate the quiet, patient, and regular work of 
those who aid in the maintenance of public order and 
morale through established institutions. It is always easier 
to stand off and criticise than to share the long labor of 
successful moral integration, construction, and conservation. 
It would be a profound benefit to society if there might 
develop among prophets outside and inside the church, lay- 
men and artists and ministers and all, a fuller appreciation 
of the worth of such priestly functions as I have merely 
sketched. 

Part of the failure of the ministry is not its own, but the 
excessive demands upon the thought and labor of a single 
person. It is enough to be a good priest. Why expect the 
minister to be also several other things? He himself will 
wish sometimes to speak as a prophet, a prophet of the most 
high God, but his usual and daily labor is that of a priest, 
not a worker of magic nor a monger of breaking authority, 
but a priest after the order of the endless life. 



89 



Chapter X : The Artist as Prophet 

ONE of the most important objections to the greater 
development of the arts on the part of religion is 
the alleged conservative character of art. Forms are 
fixed. They perpetuate the ideas which fashion them. They 
conserve the traditions prevalent at the time of their crea- 
tion. They maintain in human life, by the power of their 
beauty, faiths and ideals that otherwise would be discarded. 

There is much evidence in support of this objection. It is 
questionable whether mediaeval religion would still be so 
prevalent in many nations were it not for the vast and im- 
pressive character of the mediaeval church buildings. Rituals 
and liturgies tend to be continued in use, however archaic 
in style, resisting change long after innumerable changes are 
demanded on the part of progressive spiritual experience. 

Before coming to the main suggestion in reply to this 
objection, it is worth noting that there is something good as 
well as something unfortunate about this conserving power 
of the arts. Many good things of the past are worth con- 
serving. Human nature and human experience do not so 
profoundly change in the course of a thousand years as to 
invalidate all the elder insights. The religious culture of the 
future will ever be enriched by the spiritual values of the 
Bible and also by other expressions of the spiritual life in 
various older and later times. Many of the prayers in the 
Anglican Collect are derived from the older liturgies. They 
belong to us all. They give voice to perennial needs of the 
human heart and to many of the permanent values of spir- 
itual experience. In these times of superficial culture, it is 
more than ever worth while to be surrounded by something 
that is memorial of the august life of the past. There is a 
conservatism not narrowing in its effects but broadening. 
The tendency of religious art to perpetuate the force and 

• 90- 



The Artist as Prophet 

prevalence of the faiths of the past is very far from being 
unfortunate. 

There is another tendency of art and of the artist, how- 
ever, which in the long run is a more sufficient force to 
counteract any losses ascribed to the conservative character 
of the arts. The artist is a prophet in his own right no less 
than are other innovators. There are two ways in which this 
is true. Artists are not only constantly saying new things 
or devising new forms, but they have, in the past, many 
times expressed by their manner something different from 
the subject matter of their work. 

First, the artist is one who sees things that other men 
ignore. If he expresses what he desires to express, it is always 
some fresh way of looking at things. He is always adding' to 
the world of created beauty. Standing apart from practical 
life, at least imaginatively, he is little hindered by the 
prejudices and concerns of the ordinary man. He is not him- 
self in the "game." Sitting as a spectator, his eyes are clear 
of the dust and passion of the struggle. 

I am keenly conscious of a great difficulty here. There is 
much bad art in the world because of this separation on the 
part of artists. Perhaps there is no moral evil greater than 
that of looking upon life as a spectacle. It is contempt of 
persons. Every artist is in constant danger of this evil point 
of view. As a man and citizen he is required to be a man 
among men. As an artist he is required to stand apart and 
to be an onlooker. I believe that it makes a profound dif- 
ference as to which is the real self of the artist and which 
is his assumed dramatic role. If his real self is the spectator, 
and he merely makes dramatic excursions into real life, I 
think his art will be bad art. If his real self is man and 
citizen, and he makes the supremely dramatic effort of 
imaginative withdrawal, I think his art will be good art. 

In any case, whether the aloofness be real or assumed, 
it must be in some profound sense real for the purposes of 
good artistry. It must be a genuine attempt to see more 
things and to see them differently than they are seen during 
the actions of common life. As already suggested in another 
chapter, this is why the artist has always been accused of 

.91. 



Art & Religion 

lawlessness. And this is why there is no need for liberals to 
be afraid of him. The historic freshness of art is a great fact, 
as well as the historic conserving power of the arts. Mr. 
Bertrand Russell says that "art springs from a wild and 
anarchic side of human nature; between the artist and 
bureaucrat there must always be a profound antagonism." 

The artist is almost always a prophet of change, being 
dissatisfied with the world of ugly facts, loving the more 
romantic world that is potentially beautiful. It has been a 
matter of frequent observation among critics that great 
artists have oftentimes anticipated by the reach of their 
imaginative intuitions, points of view later conceived or 
confirmed in science or politics. 

Secondly, the artist early began to depict things for their 
own worth rather than for the purposes of his patron, the 
religionist. His subject matter immemorially has been the 
succession of divinities and saints to be represented by 
statues and paintings, to convey the faiths of religion. But 
from very ancient days, the artist seemed to peep out from 
behind his subject matter. He has spoken his own independ- 
ent word, proclaiming by his lines and colors a message of 
his own, sometimes even contradicting the subject matter of 
his work. One or two allusions will illustrate the point. 

The earlier wall relief drawings amongst the Egyptian 
antiquities are vigorous, simple, childlike, unsophisticated 
pictures. It is hard to discover in them — as, for example, in 
the tombs of Sakkara — much of any separate feeling for 
beauty on the part of the artist. But the later works of the 
imperial age are very different. Such wall reliefs as those of 
the Temple of Seti at Abydos are religious in theme, and 
strictly religious in the conventional treatment of the figures, 
but they reveal highly self-conscious canons of artistry on 
the part of the designer. Despite the subject matter and 
despite formal requirements as to its treatment, there is a 
lyrical feeling about lines, and a very advanced concep- 
tion of composition which conveys to us across these many 
centuries the artist's separate satisfaction in pure beauty. 
It is almost impossible to draw any other conclusion from 
the skill with which the artist has elaborated the various 

.92. 



The Artist as Prophet 

borders about his space and utilized repetitive forms to make 
a successful decoration. The walls are very beautiful in 
themselves as decorated surfaces. 

The same tendency is amply displayed by the Greeks. 
Perhaps, at the highest point, form and content are so unified 
that there is no suggestion of the matter we are here discuss- 
ing. But it is scarcely conceivable that Praxiteles was as 
much interested in representing the god Hermes as in repre- 
senting an ideal man. At least, so the great statue at Olym- 
pia appears to me. 

The same is true of many of the great works of the 
Italian Renaissance. Even very early the separate impulse 
of the artist was manifested. For example, in the Crucifixion 
scene on Niccola Pisano's pulpit at Pisa, the figure on the 
cross is not drawn true to life, but gracefully, as though to 
make a decoration. So also, other figures in the bronze panels 
by the same artist on the doors of the Baptistery in 
Florence. 

I believe that the greatest art is that in which form and 
content are so thoroughly at one that the total effect is 
unified. Artists should not be required to say things which 
they do not themselves believe. The history of their work 
in the world testifies their revolt when they have been called 
upon to do so. 

In this way, the artistic work of many times and places 
has been definitely prophetic ; that is, it has criticised by its 
own independent interest in life and the beauty of life, the 
particular conceptions of the religion of its day. The sugges- 
tion I am trying to make is quite precisely stated in an 
address of J. A. Symonds on the New Spirit. "Whatever 
the subject matter, . . . silent and unperceived, art, by its 
naturalism, sapped orthodoxy much in the same way as 
scholarship, by its rationalism, was serving the same pur- 
pose."* 

There is, therefore, on the whole, nothing to fear from the 
conservatism of the artist. His conservatism is never so 
objectionable as that of the creedalist. If works of religious 
art set forth the conception of the times, so do creeds. But 

* Symonds, "Last and First," p. 40. 

•93- 



Art & Religion 

when creeds are gone they are of little further worth, while 
the artist's formulation contains not only a perpetual mes- 
sage of beauty but a proper conserving memorial of the 
former values. I seldom read the Nicene Creed or the Heidel- 
berg Catechism, but very frequently get pleasure and benefit 
from an excellent copy of one of Bellini's Madonnas on the 
wall of my study. Perhaps the artist helps as much as any- 
one in solving the ever recurrent dilemma of conservatism 
and change. He represents the great conceptions of faith and 
preserves them, but also by the values of his beautiful form 
he transcends the particular ideas intimated. 

There is a permanence about any work of beauty. It is 
ever old and ever new. High art conserves the apprehensions 
of the elder ages ; by it we have communion with the fathers. 
And the highest art never fades. It is always second sight, 
always revealing, with true prophetic spirit, that things are 
not what at first sight they appear to be. 






94 








^3 







a £ 
s ^ 

•-1 ~c> 



Chapter XI : Symbols and Sacraments 

T3E artist has usually used one of two methods. He 
has begun with an idea and then selected some 
specific object to represent his idea; or he has looked 
upon an object in such a way as to see its ideal significance. 
In the one case we see his idea objectified, in the other the 
object idealized. These methods are Classicism and Roman- 
ticism in the history of the arts. In religion, they are 
Symbolism and Sacramentalism. 

Almost everyone will readily think of examples of this 
fact. A mural decoration in a courthouse, for instance, begins 
with a conception of the majesty of the law and portrays the 
theme by a series of figures intended to symbolize it. Statues, 
paintings, tableaux, certain novels, certain music, or other 
works of art definitely represent "Justice," "Peace," 
"Autumn," "War," "History." Such works are Scopas' 
"Demeter," the most of the early Italian Madonnas, 
Breton's "Gleaner," Puvis de Chavannes' "Physics." Other 
works seem not to have been conceived in this generic man- 
ner. They, rather, picture some specific object, call our notice 
to the object that we may look upon it until we see that it is 
infinitely significant. Such objects are "The Dying Gaul," 
a bowl of "Roses," "Gleaners," as Millet sees them, "Burgh- 
ers of Calais," persons in the "Spoon River Anthology." 

We are not here entering a fine or elaborate discussion of 
these facts, nor attempting to catalog the arts. Perhaps innu- 
merable works of art do not fall under either of these cate- 
gories. We are not here discussing decorative, realistic, lyri- 
cal, or other sorts of beauty. But a very large part of all the 
art objects of the world have been fashioned by one of these 
two processes. In the one case, a great conception of universal 
range, of far and high reality or import, is communicated by 
near and specific representation. In the other case, the seer 
asks us to look upon a near and familiar object, and so por- 

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Art & Religion 

trays that object that we, too, may see that it is more than 
it seems to be, investing it with import and significance high 
and universal. Browning's "Fra Lippo Lippi" describes the 
effort of the Italian painter's mind to change from one 
method to the other. 

"Suppose I've made her eyes all right and blue, 
Can't I take breath and try to add life's flesh, 
And then add soul and heighten them threefold*? 
Or say there's beauty with no soul at all — 
(I never saw it — put the case the same — ) 
If you get simple beauty and naught else, 
You get about the best thing God invents : 



But why not paint these 
Just as they are, careless what comes of it 4 ? 
God's works — paint any one, and count it crime 
To let a truth slip. 



How much more, 
If I drew higher things with the same truth ! 
That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place, 
Interpret God to all of you !" 

Religion has always used and must always use both of 
these methods. Symbolism in religion is of the nature and of 
the perennial need of the classic method in art. The person 
who claims to have no interest in symbolism talks nonsense. 
He cannot read the morning paper — for every word is a 
symbol. He could not sing "The Star-Spangled Banner." 
Some sort of symbolism is necessary to communication of 
any kind. Heightened and pictorial symbolism is necessary 
to vivid and forceful communication. The theater, the army, 
the government, the commercial world, all make constant 
and varied use of symbols to remind people of their exist- 
ence and character. Religion also must communicate itself 
by powerful and beautiful symbols. Even those who do not 
take kindly to the use of an actual wooden cross upon an 

• 9 8- 



Symbols and Sacraments 

altar or gable of a church readily sing "In the cross of Christ 
I glory," and "O make thy church a lamp of burnished 
gold." Christianity is represented to the consciousness of 
millions of people by the sign of the cross. Should Constan- 
tinople again fall under the governance of Christian powers, 
it will be symbolized in the East by the taking down of the 
Crescent from the ancient church of Haggia Sophia and the 
raising of the Cross upon the noble dome. Symbolism is not, 
of course, confined to the instrumentality of physical ob- 
jects, but includes also the use of great symbolic concep- 
tions. A creed is not the faith itself, but a symbol of the 
faith. In his religious teaching, in his attempt to make God 
conceivable and real and near to ordinary people, Jesus was 
constantly using the symbol of Fatherhood. The inventor 
of new and true symbols of the truth is a great benefactor. 

If symbols are powerful, they are also weak and inade- 
quate. No symbol can present the fulness of the reality. No 
particular can contain all the nature of the universal it seeks 
to represent. It is useful, however, and true, if it leads in 
the right direction, if its partial and pale reflection is correct 
so far as it goes. 

And if symbols are powerful they are dangerous. They 
tend to take the place of reality. They tend to become idols. 
They are likely to attract the devotee to themselves, failing 
to lead him on to the larger realities they stand for. No one 
denies this danger, but no strong man or no vitalized com- 
munity has ever been disposed to reject powerful and use- 
ful instruments because they were dangerous. The surgeon's 
knife may be used for murder, but it must still be kept sharp 
as an instrument of good. Human passions are dangerous, 
human liberties are dangerous, but for their several possi- 
bilities of good we value them all. If you want an instru- 
ment of power, you must risk an instrument of danger, 
understand it, master it, and use it aright. 

And there is something to say for idolatry. It is at least 
an open question whether it may not be as well for a man 
to bow to an idol as not to bow to anything at all. An exami- 
nation of the psychological history of mankind would prob- 
ably reveal that, up to a certain point, the experience of 

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Art & Religion 

people under the sway of heightened emotion is much the 
same whether set going by a modern rhetorical address or by 
Aaron's Golden Calf. Whatever takes people up and out of 
their workaday world to a desirable place of changed out- 
look, where they are dissatisfied with that ordinary world, 
where their imagination is expanded with the intimations of 
an Over World, and sends them back refreshed and revivi- 
fied, is so far good, whether the apparatus be of one sort 
or another. The moral value of the experience will be differ- 
ent according to the moral equipment of the society or per- 
sons involved; the energizing value may be the same. It is 
by no means certain that the moral ideas suggested at an 
opera or even a symphony concert are greatly superior to 
those which were intimated to the people attending the 
rites of Ammon-Ra or a Feast of the Passover. Nor is it 
certain that the moral worth of the fervors of tabernacle 
devotees is greater than that of the theater. The experience 
of worship must always be divided into its two parts, its 
energizing value and its practical value. On the energy side, 
the idol worshiper may often make a better showing than the 
intellectualist and, even on the moral side, not all the idola- 
ters have carried away a less humane point of view than 
some modern religionists who are out of touch with the best 
morals. I am trying to suggest here that the danger of the 
symbol becoming an idol is no greater than the danger of 
impractical and unmoral religious excitement stirred by 
different means. And also that this danger is no more unde- 
sirable than the danger of coldness and hardness and mate- 
rialism without any emotional stir at all. 

If the symbol is at times likely to take the place of the 
reality, there is also a sense in which the reality does reside 
in the symbol. A soldier on patrol duty, guarding whatever 
he is set to guard, might well say, "Strike me and you strike 
the United States." Christians have always conceived of 
Christ as the great symbol of God, but also have always 
conceived of God as being in some profound sense in Christ. 
To reject him is to reject the Father, to see him is to see the 
Father. With this suggestion, we turn to the other side of 
the artistic and religious method. 

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Symbols and Sacraments 

As the artist portrays a particular object, lifting it into 
its universal import, so the religionist performs a specific act 
which he calls a sacrament. 

Protestants in general do not have a very clear concep- 
tion of what a sacrament is. We do not understand the mean- 
ing of the word and we are suspicious of it. Certainly it is 
used oftentimes to mean something entirely foreign to our 
whole conception of religion. Possibly the word should be 
entirely discarded, as being obscure and misleading. Possi- 
bly, also, there are important meanings in it which we have 
forgotten or undervalued. 

To begin with, the word is derived from the same root as 
the word sacred, itself only slightly less obscure in our 
thought. Yet we do recognize the necessity of making some 
distinction as between sacred and secular. If in some sense 
all things are sacred, the result of attention to this side of 
the truth is really to conceive of all things as merely secular. 
There are many conceptions and the words which represent 
them that merge into each other or that are simply the oppo- 
site sides of the same shield. Nevertheless, the shield has the 
two sides. A sacred thing is a thing dedicated, belonging to 
God, partaking of the nature of Divinity. A sacramental act 
is an act of dedication. In some sense the converse is true, that 
every act of dedication is a sacrament, because it partakes 
of the nature of Divinity. There are things in human life 
which ordinary men generally feel to be sacred, holy, beyond 
cavil, inviolate. The burial field of heroic warrior dead is 
somehow sacred soil. The birth chamber is a sacred place. 
A great vow is a sanctified thing, such as the "Oath of the 
Tennis Court," the Declaration of Independence which 
pledged "our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." The 
giving of self to serve a cause, the laying down of life for 
another, the self-loss, peril, and pain of motherhood — these 
are sacred things, in some sense the manifestation of Divinity 
in human life, in some sense placing the devotee beyond 
praise or blame. In a slightly more restricted sense, any 
conscious and formal act of dedication is sacramental, such 
as the mutual vows of marriage. If the dedication is to God 
it becomes a definite sacrament. 

• 101 • 



Art & Religion 

It is a religious view to hold that God is literally present 
in the sacrament. A human being in the act of consecration, 
putting forth the spiritual effort of self-offering, is then and 
there godlike, then and there partakes of the nature of 
Divinity, then and there has God in him, and is seen to be 
God possessed. As the artist portrays a particular object to 
help us see that it is more than it seems to be, so the priest 
draws his people to the performance of an act in which they 
are seen to be not only human but divine. In the sacrament 
of Baptism the child is dedicated to God; his life is seen to 
be of divine as well as of human origin; his life is recog- 
nized as belonging to God as well as to his parents, the 
state, or to himself. His parents dedicate themselves to the 
task of bringing him up in the "nurture and admonition of 
the Lord." They are seen to be not merely and physically 
father and mother, but priests of God entrusted with a holy 
office. 

In view of the paucity of ritual material amongst the 
Protestant churches, and of the difficulties in the invention 
of new exercises instinct with deep and moving meaning, 
it may be well to consider increasing the number of sacra- 
ments. Perhaps one or more others of the early seven could 
be reestablished. Perhaps two sacraments should be devel- 
oped out of the present usages connected with the sacrament 
of Baptism. It would simply involve our all becoming Bap- 
tists in the matter of the restriction of that sacrament to 
believers only. It would constitute a more notable form to 
mark the matured acceptance of the Christian life and thus 
go far, as the Baptists have always held, to safeguard the 
purity of the church and its regenerate life. In this case, we 
should stand greatly in need of a sacrament of Christening 
to take the place of infant Baptism. Such an act, to mark 
the Christianizing or the inclusion of the child in the Chris- 
tian community, the recognition that it belongs to God, and 
the vow of responsibility for its Christian nurture, would 
constitute, as at present, a beautiful and holy presentation. 

In the formal sense, a sacrament has an outward as well 
as an inward side: it includes physical elements. There is 
nothing especially mysterious about the nature of the ele- 

•102- 



Symbols and Sacraments 

ments, except in so far as the nature of matter in general is 
mysterious. Nor is there anything exceptionally mysterious 
about the nature of the influence or purpose of the material 
elements, except as the nature of all sensational influence 
is mysterious. The formulas that are spoken, the water that 
is poured, both physical act and material element, these call 
for, signify, and express the inner effort and act of the spirit. 
And if they do so successfully, then God is in the sacrament. 
If the outward acts, elements, or symbols do not serve to 
produce any motion of the spirit, either in the heart of the 
priest or of the people, then no sacrament has occurred, and 
no grace of God has been imparted. 

It is only by long association that many have come to 
regard the material element as sacred. To the Protestant 
experience, the material element is essentially only a matter 
of artistry, a symbol, an idealization. The use made of the 
material element is not a matter of artistry, but a sacrament 
in which Divinity is present. In other words, the view of 
many Protestants that God is not in the sacrament is not the 
view here expressed. The conception here set forth is that 
Divinity is actually in the sacrament, as being in the spirits 
of persons performing the religious act which we call the 
sacrament. On the other hand, the view excludes the con- 
ception of any sense in which Divinity is extraordinarily 
resident in the material elements. Of course our conclusion 
comes from our definition. Otherwise define a sacrament and 
you must otherwise conceive the elements. Or begin with 
another conception of the outward form and it would be 
difficult to define the sacrament, in our manner, as a dedica- 
tory religious act of persons. 

The sacrament of the Eucharist is more complicated and 
so more mysterious than any other. Just as with some works 
of art it is difficult to decide whether we have the idea 
objectified or the object idealized, so here we halt between 
the symbolic and mystic conceptions. Both are involved. 
If even in Protestant feeling the strictly symbolical is 
minimized and merged into the sacramental or mystical, 
it is not difficult to see how the Romanist has confused the 
self-offering of the devotee with the formal offering of the 

.103. 



Art & Religion 

elements, taking the elements out of the realm of symbolism 
into that of idealization and transubstantiation. 

It is essentially the same point of view, often expressed 
by Protestants when they refer to the actual bread and 
wine as "the sacrament." In our view these elements are 
not the sacrament, but the symbols idealized to call forth 
and assist the inner and profound sacramental act. In what- 
ever sense sanctity may be said to attach to the elements, 
according to the practice of some after they are set apart 
and thus consecrated, in actual usage amongst the reformed 
churches, the prayer of "consecration" expresses only a 
slight interest in the setting apart of the elements and a 
deep interest in the consecration of persons. 

The abundant danger of this view is the danger of sub- 
jectivity and informality; the danger of placing a too slight 
value upon the external and formal administration, and 
the danger of a merely humanized experience. We do not 
sufficiently believe in or expect an actual visitation of 
Divinity in the sacrament, thinking rather of the experience 
as our own. And so, thinking of the experience as our own 
production, we have too little considered the powers of the 
church and of the formal administration. 

There is an objective value in the historic sacraments. 
The nature of the spiritual life in a material world is ever 
a profound mystery. The nature of human salvation and 
sanctification is mysterious. One of its problems Mr. Hock- 
ing has stated thus : "To be disposed to save others we must 
first be saved ourselves ; yet to be saved ourselves, we must 
be disposed to save others." This is the perpetual dilemma 
of salvation. If not a vicious circle, it is a circle outside of 
which it would seem many men stand. The sacraments are 
administered to break the circle. The sacrament bears the 
burden of initiation. It is not complete without the actual 
presence of God to give power to carry out the dedication 
that has occurred. But the power to make the dedication is 
lacking without the divine presence, and this visitation can- 
not come without humility. But even your humility you 
cannot produce of yourself. It is induced in you by your 
appreciation of something outside that makes you humble. 

• 104- 



Symbols and Sacraments 

This is the function of the material elements and the for- 
mal administration of the sacrament. They are symbols 
which bring near to you and represent the sacrifice of Christ. 
Through them you are helped to "be in contact with the 
real and living Christ." That contact begins in you a process 
of divinization which is partly your act of consecration and 
partly the action of the divine grace toward you and within 
you. "What we consecrate, God will sanctify." The tran- 
substantiation which occurs is not that of the material ele- 
ments, but a real transubstantiation of persons, a real 
change of human nature into divine nature. This is the 
essential miracle. It is this experience of the satisfaction of 
spiritual hunger, the transformation of pain, the purifica- 
tion, dedication, and so the sanctification, of heart and 
mind, which has enabled unnumbered Christian mystics to 
say that they have partaken of the "blessed sacrament" "to 
their comfort." 

Religion always offers more than ideas, and more than 
moral precepts; it supplies the energy to live by. It cannot 
be described in terms of truth or in programs of right con- 
duct, but rather and chiefly in manifestations of power. It 
is for this reason that Miss Harrison has emphasized the 
likeness of the latest and highest evolutions of spiritual 
experience with the most primitive. The magic of savage 
religion, if it could be called religion, was operated in the 
interests of power, power in war, power over private 
enemies, power over the gods, or the power of the gods. Of 
not very different sort are, and should be, the highest reli- 
gious exercises. They are religious acts, performed in the 
sense of weakness and need, to gain the vitalizing forces of 
the great unknown "power not ourselves." The world of the 
unknown is larger than the known. Known forces we can 
begin to understand and to manipulate; it is the vast un- 
known with which we must come to terms. It is this which 
leads Miss Harrison to suggest that our gods become non- 
religious by becoming known. She little regards the ritual 
of eikonism, that is, the worship which centers round a too 
clearly denned and represented deity. She more highly 
values the ritual of aneikonism, as being, like magic, aimed 

• 105- 



Art & Religion 

at the control of the unknown forces, of things that are, by a 
sacramental and nrystical union with the highest. Eikonism 
is symbolism; aneikonism is sacramentalism. 

Two things, therefore, I am trying to suggest: that reli- 
gion must use symbols, definitive, concrete representations, 
to set forth what it knows or definitely believes; and that 
it must use sacraments as exercises of personal consecration 
to the highest reality, whatever that reality is, however 
much unknown, that the presence and power of Divinity 
may become more fully operative in human life. The first 
usage is merely artistic, the embodiment of ideas in objects, 
after the fashion of all Classic artists. Such embodiments 
may be in the form of pictures, or creeds, or more familiar 
concepts, or statues, or classic music, or the elements of a 
sacrament. By all these forms, fairly clear ideas are objec- 
tified and symbolized. The second usage quickly becomes 
more than artistry, more than the idealization of particular 
objects. The Romantic artist portrays objects so that we can 
see them in all the reaches of their relations, idealizing them. 
Religion takes hold on a man by a sacrament and not merely 
idealizes him but transforms him into the ideal. The process 
is carried out of the realm of artistic idealization into that 
of religious transubstantiation. 



•106 



Chapter XII : Religious Education 

THERE are very few things, perhaps nothing, more 
important to do for a child than to help him to see 
that the world is beautiful. The habit of observing, 
not for the sake of reporting facts, but for the sake of enjoy- 
ment, is a great blessing to any person. It may be formed in 
youth. It may be in part the beginning of a permanent pur- 
suit of that life which is more than meat. It may become a 
constant source of many spiritual experiences and virtues 
throughout life. The public schools are doing much to help 
their scholars form this habit. Many churches also are aware 
of the powers of beauty for good in life. 

For the most part, however, the conscious usage of the arts 
in the religious education of Protestantism has been limited 
to the singing of songs, and a meager amount of pictorial 
illustration. There has been little conception of the worth of 
sheer beauty. There has been little attempt to develop in 
any critical way such exercises as children and young people 
will find beautiful and hence enjoyable. These things are 
now rapidly coming to the fore. 

One of the principal points of merit in the modern concep- 
tion of religious education is its emphasis upon expression. 
The expressive or moral side of the religious life has been 
now for a number of years prominent. Children's societies 
and young people's work and the organized classes of the 
Sunday schools have been devised for the expressive life of 
the youth. Meanwhile this education has been of late but 
weakly impressive. There has been little analysis and until 
recently little experimentation in the arts of impression. 
Paradoxically, the impression that I am speaking of in- 
volves expressive exercises of worship, expressive in the reli- 
gious rather than the moral sense. It is by the power of 
ritual that lasting impressions are made. Religious educa- 
tion needs to take account of such profound studies of the 

• 107- 



Art & Religion 

social traits of man as those of the late Professor William 
Graham Sumner. He vigorously describes the influence of 
ritual, by which he means not only the performance of reli- 
gious acts, but the detailed manner of life in many relations. 
"The mores are social ritual in which we all participate 
unconsciously. The current habits as to hours of labor, meal 
hours, family life, the social intercourse of the sexes, 
propriety, amusements, travel, holidays, education, the use 
of periodicals and libraries, and innumerable other details 
of life fall under this ritual."* 

In the more restricted religious sense, ritual is very power- 
ful. "Ritual is something to be done, not something to be 
thought or felt. Men can always perform the prescribed act, 
although they cannot always think or feel prescribed 
thoughts or emotions. The acts may bring up again, by asso- 
ciation, states of the mind and sentiments which have been 
connected with them, especially in childhood, when the 
fantasy was easily affected by rites, music, singing, dramas, 
etc. No creed, no moral code, and no scientific demonstra- 
tion can ever win the same hold upon men and women as 
habits of action, with associated sentiments and states of 
mind, drilled in from childhood. . . . Ritual is so foreign 
to our mores that we do not recognize its power. ... If 
infants and children are subjected to ritual they never 
escape from its effects through life. Galton says that he was, 
in early youth, in contact with the Mohammedan ritual idea 
that the left hand is less worthy than the right, and that he 
never overcame it."f 

I know that this is precisely the reason why many people 
do not wish to use ritual. They fear that it is too powerful. 
Yet, at the same time, they go about hunting for something 
else that will be powerful enough to interest and hold the 
youth. It is surely absurd, on the one hand, to bewail the 
lack of devices for holding the young and, on the other 
hand, fail to use an admittedly powerful instrument for it. 
Probably the subconscious mistake in this connection is the 
identification of ritual in general with the particular rites 

* Sumner, "Folkways," p. 62. 
•flbid., pp. 61 and 60. 

• 108- 



Religious Education 

of the Roman or Anglican churches. Even Professor Coe, 
in his recent valuable book, "A Social Theory of Religious 
Education," seems to make this mistake. In his chapter on 
"Ritualism," he assumes a very narrow definition of the 
term and then, of course, very properly criticises that con- 
ception, knocking down the straw man that he has set up. 
I should do the same, given his premises. But the premises 
are wrong. It is entirely possible to develop beautiful and 
effective forms, such as may be truly described as rites, 
which would have little of the unfortunate effect he sug- 
gests but rather be calculated to impress and to express 
the very sentiments and attitudes he considers desirable. 

Even so, Professor Coe is ready to admit the naturalness 
and the effectiveness of the ritualistic method. Like every 
other psychologist, he understands the imitative tendencies 
of little children and the formality loving character of the 
adolescent period. "The church and its services offer mate- 
rial of instruction that the pupil can experience as present 
and concrete. The church building and its furniture, to begin 
with, meet the pupil as a visible expression of religion. . . . 
Small children are fond of action and of repetition. When 
to the sensuous impressiveness of a churchly interior, music, 
vestments, processional, and responsive actions of priest, 
choir and congregation, we add opportunity to take an 
active part in the whole, important conditions of a child's 
interest are met. . . . Many adolescents welcome symbols 
for longings that they are not as yet able to understand. 
For adolescence not seldom brings idealistic longings that 
crave expression though they cannot as yet define them- 
selves. Symbols offer one mode of expression, especially 
symbols that are stately and sounding, but not too literal." 

The first opportunity of improvement is the service of 
worship in the Church School itself. At this point, no one 
has made so fine a contribution as Dr. Hugh Hartshorne. 
The results of his thinking and, better still, of his experi- 
mentation and actual practical experience, are available for 
everyone in his books, "Manual for Training in Worship," 
and "The Book of Worship of the Church School." These 
contain not only psychological analysis and constructive 

•109- 



Art & Religion 

theory, but also definite and detailed material for the prac- 
tical worker. There is nothing else available anything like 
so valuable as these publications. 

Another of the most competent workers and experiment- 
ers in this field is the Rev. J. W. F. Davies of Winnetka, 
Illinois. His service of worship for the main Church School 
is conducted in the church building itself. The order of 
service is usually the same in form, but considerably varied 
in content, always fresh and vivid. He has of late developed 
an exceptionally beautiful brief ritual for the further wor- 
ship of the junior scholars after they have withdrawn from 
the church services. It consists of the lighting of four candles 
in the hands of chosen scholars, from the light burning in a 
model temple, together with the words which described the 
symbolism of the candles as representing the parts of wor- 
ship. This ritual, meanwhile, is accompanied by the four 
corresponding exercises of song, reading, prayer, and giving. 
After the children's sermon, there is a brief corresponding 
closing exercise. 

There are other excellent usages of similar character. 
This is one of the most simple and effective I know of. It 
has several points of excellence, and is mentioned here 
merely by way of illustration of the kind of care and dignity 
in the matter of children's worship which is needed in every 
place. It is a genuine ritual, without any objectionable 
features. It is interesting and enjoyable because beautiful, 
and impressive because compacted of an external fascina- 
tion and a self -expressive exercise. 

The next opportunity for the greater usage of the fine 
arts in the religious education of the young is the church 
service itself. Amongst the best leaders in Church School 
work there is a growing emphasis upon the attendance of 
the scholars en masse at the worship of the church service. 
The simple device of processional and recessional marching 
cares for the practical side of the matter and tends to secure 
the attendance of the whole body of scholars. In many 
places both the interest and beauty of the plan are aug- 
mented by the development of a large children's choir, 

• 110- 



Religious Education 

which may have a modest but effective part in the church 
service. 

One of the reasons for this development is the superior 
beauty of the church building itself. Is it fair to the chil- 
dren for the church to construct a costly and beautiful house 
of worship, and then proceed to conduct the exercises of 
worship for children in another part of the building not 
nearly so beautiful? Few churches can afford to build two 
sanctuaries, and none ought to. If the rooms of the parish 
house are devised for general assembly, lectures, secular 
discussions, social affairs, dramatics, and other such pur- 
poses, they cannot at the same time be made so beautiful for 
worship as the church itself, which is made primarily for 
worship. Beginners and primary scholars have attractive 
rooms of their own. But if the juniors and intermediates do 
not attend the regular church service, then their own service 
of worship should be held in the main church and not in a 
hall or other lesser room. In any case, the superior dignity 
and beauty of the church building itself should be brought 
to bear as an influential force upon the lives of the children. 
It is throwing away a great opportunity not to do this. 
Without any danger of superstition, we may yet develop 
something of the attitude of reverence in the House of God 
which the older churches demand. It is easier to do this if 
the building itself is a noble structure. 

If the children attend the church service, the church 
service must be planned for their needs as well as for the 
adult experience. To this end many ministers preach a 
children's sermon. There are many things to say for this 
practice. A still better method, however, is to have the chil- 
dren's sermon in their own room, by themselves, imme- 
diately after they have marched out of the regular church 
service. The chief difficulty is in finding someone to do it. 
With the larger parish organization and the varied ministry 
that will characterize the future church, this plan will be 
more widely utilized. 

Meanwhile the usages and practices of the regular order 
of worship in the church can be greatly improved in the 
direction of their appeal to the young. For this reason, it 

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Art & Religion 

becomes desirable to use every opportunity that is dignified 
for the development of color, symbolism, and movement, in 
the regular church service. Whatever adds to the interest of 
the service to the eye as well as to the ear is pertinent at this 
point. And those who make experiments in this direction 
will probably discover that the children are not the only 
ones for whom things to be seen as well as things to be heard 
are interesting. 

Religious education is not a limited process. It is a life- 
long enterprise. It is not for children only, but for all of 
us through all our years. Here enters another important fact 
which bears directly upon what we shall do or not do about 
the development of the arts in religion. The fact is this, that 
younger communities in our country are free and easy in 
their manners and conservative in their thought ; older com- 
munities are conservative in their manners, all the while 
that they are also inclined to be more liberal in their think- 
ing. The liberal theology is more developed in the churches 
of the East, and also the better usages in the art of worship. 
In the West, the preaching is more conservative, while the 
forms of worship are less conventional. The older communi- 
ties are superior at both points. 

The place for new thought is the pulpit. The pulpit 
stands for prophecy, for proposals of change, for fearless 
examination of truth, for an outlook toward the future. Yet 
the religious community desires also to value the past. It 
needs to revere and to conserve the great spiritual victories 
and judgments of the fathers. It needs to preserve and pass 
on its great wealth of inherited devotion. The place for this 
conserving force is the service of worship. Here is the 
proper vehicle of transmission. Here is given abundant ex- 
pression, in the elder forms, of the great answers that reli- 
gion always has to the few primary, personal problems of 
existence. The new things are not yet formulated. They 
need examination and criticism. The place for setting forth 
new proposals is not in forms and exercises, but in the free 
utterance of the free preacher. Religious education, like all 
education, will always include the culture derived from the 

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Religious Education 

past and the scientific examination of proposals for the 
future. 

The children and the youth have a right to expect that 
we will convey to them the riches we have received. There 
is no better way than the direct contact of reverent worship, 
as that utilizes the literary treasures of the Bible and the 
later Christian centuries, together with the reverent exer- 
cises of devotion. 

How much better for adults, also, if they get their con- 
servatism in hours of worship rather than in preaching. If 
the preaching is conservative and the forms are free and 
easy, the people never will be religiously educated. They 
will get neither the new nor the old. They will hear no fresh 
discussion of the new things they ought to be considering if 
they are to grow in the knowledge and the practice of the 
truth. Nor, on the other hand, will they ever be truly cul- 
tured in the old things, for by no possibility can the inher- 
ited devotional riches of the faith be transmitted and ever 
freshly enjoyed in a free and easy exercise of worship. 

Part of the fault for the situation just described lies in 
the theological seminaries. They are in these days open- 
minded and abundant in their teaching of the new things. 
They set forth the forward look in matters of science and 
ethics and theology. They are deficient in their treatment 
of the past. This seems a strange thing to say, when it is 
popularly supposed that they are too much rooted in the 
past. They make much of the past, to be sure, but in the 
wrong category. They connect with the theological think- 
ing of the past more successfully than with the spiritual 
culture of the past, two quite different things. There is 
instruction in the thinking and the action of the past, 
together with slight conveyance of the feeling of the past. 

Religious history is set forth too largely as something 
dead and done for, something with which you should be 
familiar as an educated man, but not something that need 
enter deeply into your life as a cultured man. There is not 
a sufficient alignment of historic facts with those permanent 
elements in human nature which perennially appear and 
reappear. There is no sufficient sense of the swing and re- 

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Art & Religion 

swing of the pendulum of human feeling, and the reappear- 
ance of many problems and the reappearance of many solu- 
tions in the spiritual life of the race. The courses of study 
are not lacking in mentality or in historic information; they 
are lacking in culture. 

They have often sent out men to preach old thoughts but 
not equipped to conserve old feelings. It should be just 
turned about. They should send out men thoroughly 
equipped and competent to bear to people the noble worths 
of the Christian treasury in superior forms and exercises, 
while at the same time equipped freely to engage in prob- 
lems of the new thought and the new morals. The true 
religious education must include not only scientific think- 
ing and social conduct, but also religious culture. 

Lest I seem to be too harsh respecting the provision of 
theological schools in this matter, the last catalogue of the 
Divinity School of the University of Chicago lists more 
than four hundred courses offered by its regular faculty 
and the allied religious houses. Among these there are just 
two which are devoted to the subject of public worship. 

Besides all this, many students of society are beginning to 
realize afresh that education in general is not complete 
without religion. There is rapidly developing a widespread 
dissatisfaction with the seemingly unavoidable secularity 
of the great state universities. These big institutions are 
magnificent embodiments of American idealism as well as of 
American ambition and efficiency. There is, nevertheless, a 
highly unfortunate weakness about any educational system 
inhibited from a free display of the history of the human 
spirit and from anything but a meager provision for con- 
veying to the maturing citizen a moving sense of the highest 
values. It will some day be disastrous to the life of the 
state if this condition becomes accepted as a possibly perma- 
nent one. It need not be permanent except for the divisive- 
ness of religion itself. It is an ever present challenge to the 
church to become unified, and that not merely respecting 
Protestantism, but rather respecting the whole of Chris- 
tianity. 

Meanwhile, there are untried opportunities for enriching 

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Religious Education 

the cultural standards of these universities by a greater 
notice and tutelage of the fine arts. Something of the same 
amplitude which is accorded literary studies needs to be 
provided for in other artistic fields. Without taking the 
place of religion, such a procedure would, nevertheless, go 
very far in the direction of emphasizing value judgments 
and value experience as compared to the preponderance of 
study in the world of facts. Meanwhile, also, the demand 
for education is so great that philanthropists may well give 
renewed attention to the smaller Christian college. The 
population of our great western states will be so large that 
all will be needed. The college which is free from political 
connection is free to develop not only religious teaching, but 
the great cultural exercises of religion, in which alone the 
whole personality comes to the highest self-realization. 

Religious education is a concern of statesmen as well as 
of churchmen. The last word has not yet been said concern- 
ing the relations of church and state. Among the categories 
from which light on these vexed and intricate problems will 
be derived are not only goodness and truth but also beauty. 

And in this whole matter of the relations of art and edu- 
cation, the primary need is a change of attitude toward 
beauty. Like truth and goodness, it is an end in itself. It is 
one of the supreme values. We try to help children to be 
good for practical and social ends, but also because good- 
ness is ultimate, because it derives from a divine mandate. 
So, also, art will help us as an excellent means to other ends, 
but this is not the chief reason for its being. By this I do not 
mean just what the old cry "art for art's sake" demanded; 
yet something very like it. One of the essentials of educa- 
tion, both general and religious, is beauty. To help young 
lives to see and enjoy beauty is to help them apprehend 
God. 



115 



Chapter XIII : Church Unity 

T3E possible union of all Christian churches is in 
the minds of many men. Definite practical propos- 
als on the part of great religious bodies are more 
and more hopeful of progress in this direction. Definite 
attempts and experiments in local communities are numer- 
ous. The relation of the arts to this situation is vital. 

The experience of those most interested to promote church 
union has revealed the difficulties of success in the intellec- 
tual area. Despite the prevalence of scientific assumptions, 
the times are still unfavorable for getting together on the 
basis of extensive definitions. All the hopeful efforts are 
reducing to a minimum the required points of creedal agree- 
ment. 

It is somewhat easier to promote unity on the basis of 
common moral effort. Federations, both great and small, are 
making useful contributions at this point. Vastly more is 
needed. How shall the voices of the divided churches be 
heard with effect respecting the rights and wrongs of a world 
torn by industrial dissension? The crying needs for innu- 
merable reforms constitute perhaps the greatest pressure 
for a united Christendom. There are yet many possibili- 
ties of attaining the desired unions through the joint enter- 
prises in which men of differing creedal standards learn to 
understand and respect each other as they work together. 
Yet the appeal of duty does not have the welding fire in it 
except the situation be critical. There is a third region in 
which there may be expected important contributions to 
this need of the times. 

The unities of feeling are more profound than those of 
thought and more stirring than those of work. Thought 
often divides, feeling unites. If people can be led to share a 
common emotional experience they have already been 
touched by the welding fire. One of the resources for the 

• ii6- 



Church Unity 

creation of such experience is that of art. There is something 
about art which lifts people for a time out beyond the cate- 
gories of thinking or those of doing. Morality, as C. A. 
Bennett points out, demands choices, decisions, the taking of 
sides. These are in themselves divisive. The region of art 
is a region of composure, the meeting place of the sentiments 
of common humanity. "The artist demolishes the barriers 
which morality or convention or prejudices set up, showing 
us that if it is necessary to establish distinctions, it is just 
as necessary from time to time to rise above them."* 

If this be true of art in general, may it not be true of the 
supreme art of worship*? The experiences of worship are 
independent of the character of definitions and of activi- 
ties. Reverence, exaltation, dedication — these may be the 
same as to disposition and intensity, whatever the wor- 
shiper's faith is about God or about duty. 

Part of the pressure, therefore, toward church unity, and 
one of the great aids to its coming, is not economic or 
practical, but artistic. People of one strain of spiritual 
experience are wanting the more abundant life to be had in 
fellowship with those of other types. Moreover, a greater 
development of the arts by each type will tend to diminish 
the differences and assist the coming union. 

First, then, there is a widespread desire for a more inclu- 
sive religious experience. Every merger of religious bodies 
tends to an enrichment of their expressive life. The divisive- 
ness of Protestantism has brought about a meagerness of 
experience, a thinness of emotional life, limited usually to 
one type only. Church union will bring together the valu- 
able contributions of different groups, resulting in a more 
abundant life for all. In discussing the federation of Chris- 
tian churches in America, Professor George Cross of Roches- 
ter Seminary writes of the natural tendency of Protestant 
worship: "In public devotions it sometimes degenerates into 
irreverence. . . . The federation will tend to modify 
greatly the worship of the churches which come within 
it. . . . Out of the richer sense of spiritual communion is 

* "Art as an Antidote for Morality," International Journal of Ethics, 
January, 1920. 

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Art & Religion 

supplied a corrective of the deplorable common looseness 
of public devotion in many Protestant churches. . . . 
While, therefore, the future liturgies of the church must be 
free from the sacramentalism that regards any rite as essen- 
tial to salvation, or that allows proxies in the religious life, 
and while they will be various and flexible, in keeping with 
the variety of types of spirituality in the churches, they will, 
on the other hand, take on that more stately and dignified 
character which flows from the consciousness of a broader 
and more comprehensive unity."* 

One of the most deep passions moving the spirit of that 
bold experimenter, the Rev. William E. Orchard, D.D., of 
the King's Weigh House Chapel, London, is at this point. His 
interest in church union seems to be an interest in the larger 
life to be made possible only by the blending of separatistic 
experience and the moving forward of many elements into 
the fuller Christian abundance. "Every type of Christianity 
is failing today just because it is a type. The excellences of 
each are negatived by its partial and uncorrected witness." f 
It is precisely the sin of dividing experience which he de- 
scribes as " . . . the far worse schism of setting themselves 
to minister only to a part of human nature, either the crav- 
ing for authority or the demand for freedom, the longing for 
mystical communion or the desire for rational understand- 
ing. The churches have not only divided the Body of Christ ; 
they have divided the soul of man. If one sets out in this 
modern world to find a church which shall provide real 
spiritual fellowship, one soon discovers that in every church 
that exists we can have freedom or authority, mysticism or 
rationalism, the supernatural or the natural, liturgical or 
free prayer, trained and prepared preaching or untrained 
and unprepared preaching, a worship dominated by awe or 
directed like a public meeting; whereas a human being wants 
all these things at one time or another." % 

Undoubtedly, one of the greatest urgencies toward the 
coming together of divided Christendom is this demand for 

* American Journal of Theology, April, 1919. 
t Orchard, "The Outlook for Religion," p. 73. 
% Ibid., p. 264. 

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Church Unity 

the fuller Christian life and experience. And this demand 
is not only on behalf of the insider, but in the name of the 
outsider, "that the world may believe." 

A thoroughly modern man surveys the churches of a great 
city only to discover that none of them is satisfactory. He 
is not attracted by the dun-colored mediocrity of the aver- 
age church. It is neither sufficiently clear and progressive, 
intellectually and morally, nor rich artistically, to be inter- 
esting. He turns to the especially liberal church or to a 
theater independent for a satisfaction of his mental needs. 
But there his emotions are starved. His modernity is not 
only intellectual but artistic. He finds no reverence, no high 
art, no worship, in the lecture hall. He swings back to one 
of the old liturgical churches. He is momentarily pleased 
with the excellent forms, only soon to be freshly disturbed 
by the conservatism of thought still characteristic of all the 
old form bodies. 

In hundreds of communities there are, on the one hand, 
centers of liberal thought devoid of the artistry of worship 
and of the devotional life; and on the other hand, altars 
where the service of old rituals is accompanied by the set- 
ting forth of old ideas. Unfortunately, moreover, too many 
Protestant churches which claim superiority as not going to 
either of those extremes, possess the virtues of neither and 
the faults of both. Their ideas are old and their liturgy ugly. 
Many an outsider would like to come in if he could find a 
place where his whole nature could be satisfied. 

The more emotional churches are no more satisfactory to 
the seeker. Says Dr. Shakespeare: "I am inclined to agree 
with the late Ian Maclaren that as the level of culture rises, 
the desire for liturgical worship increases, simply because 
breaches in reverence and taste hinder and offend the cul- 
tured, and these are almost inevitable in non-liturgical wor- 
ship."* Sir John McClure, the recent chairman of the Con- 
gregational Union of Great Britain, in his retiring address 
discusses at length the necessity for improving the art of 
worship. He calls attention to the widespread development 
of wretched hymns and hymn tunes supposedly in the inter- 

* J. H. Shakespeare, "The Church at the Cross-Roads," p. 112. 

• 119- 



Art & Religion 

est of popularity. "But it is urged, 'we must consult all 
tastes.' I agree. In the application of the principle, however, 
it too often happens that only one taste is consulted, and 
that the worst. Are we not suffering from a slothful toler- 
ance of a poor second best*?"* 

In the last analysis nothing but the actual union of dif- 
fering strains of religious experience will accomplish any 
large scale improvement of the religious experience fostered 
in the local parish. Individual churches are already making 
brilliant experiments. Some of these serve to point the way, 
but the national life cannot be touched without the greater 
union of sectarian bodies so desirable from this point of 
view. First, then, part of the pressure toward union is the 
desire for better worship, the desire for the more abundant 
life to be had by the blending of divided strains of spiritual 
history and experience. 

Secondly, this desirable union will be much furthered by 
a greater interest in the arts on the part of non-liturgical 
churches. I do not mean by this the adoption of the liturgies 
of the older churches, either the Roman Catholic Mass, or 
the Anglican Prayer Book, or the Greek Rite. What is re- 
quired is much more difficult than this, a new study of the 
psychology of worship and of the applications of the find- 
ings to definite orders of worship. 

The old liturgies contain not only abundant material 
for revived usage but many important suggestions on the 
psychological principles involved. They were developed 
through the operation of those principles. Our orders of 
worship are recent and comparatively undeveloped. Many 
a free church would find itself far closer than it thinks to 
the historic liturgies of the church if it would, on the one 
hand, freshly and freely study the principles of worship, 
and on the other, take the trouble to discover how much 
good there is in many of the older formularies. 

If such effort could be promoted on a large scale, I ven- 
ture that it would have a more remarkable effect on the 
promotion of church unity than similar efforts either in the 
intellectual or moral areas. Sir John McClure in the same 

* Reported in the Christian World. 

• 120- 



Church Unity 

address mentioned raises this expectation: "There is steadily 
growing amongst us a conviction that the advantage of a 
liturgy greatly outweighs its defects; and that by enabling 
all to join more heartily and more intelligently in common 
worship it provides a much needed spiritual uplift for both 
minister and congregation." He suggested that "a liturgy 
might help, in however small a measure, to the attainment 
of that unity for which we long and pray." 

Churches will be brought together according as they be- 
come similar through the effort to develop a more inclusive 
experience and appeal. "It is possible that the Protestant 
world now stands on the eve of some transition, waiting for 
the manifestation of its full content in a consummate act of 
worship. It has been said that worship is one of the lost 
arts; but if so, it is not to be found by compressing the 
spiritual wealth secured by the Protestant Reformation 
under the Providence of God into the moulds of ages infe- 
rior to our own. Religion must now go forward, taking all 
that the past can offer, in so far as it can harmonize with a 
greater ideal, but reconstructing in some more comprehen- 
sive way the worship and the conception of the sacrifice 
acceptable to God. From which sacrifice cannot be with- 
held any contribution made by the human mind toward the 
solution of the mystery of existence. The sacrifice will in- 
clude every department of human interest and inquiry, 
music, art, and poetry, as well as science, philosophy, and 
theology."* 

Mr. Allen is here hinting at more things than at first 
appear. On the one hand, he has in mind the tendencies 
here and there to revive mediaeval usages without so very 
much change. On the other hand, he sees the necessity of 
developing something greatly superior to the Protestant 
usages current among us. His hope lies in the direction of 
a newer and richer development in the future, with some- 
thing of the abundance of the old liturgies, drawing upon 
them for many materials, but freely developed to meet both 
new thoughts and new psychologies. 

Two more or less opposing movements are interesting at 

* Alexander V. G. Allen, "Christian Institutions," p. 564. 

• 121 • 



Art & Religion 

this point. I do not believe that either of them quite pos- 
sesses the key to the future. Both are significant, both will 
make large contributions to the church of the new age. The 
first is what might be called a Revival of Mediaevalism. 
The second is a growing interest in the so-called Community 
Church. 

The Revival of Mediaevalism is manifest in two striking 
movements, the character and success of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, and the extensive drawing upon mediae- 
val forms on the part of some free churches. 

I am not disposed to argue at length with anyone who 
denies the fact, but I am acquainted with a very large num- 
ber of personal transfers from other bodies into the Episco- 
pal Church. Especially is this true in the older American 
communities. A still more striking fact is the maintenance 
of the strength of Episcopacy in our older and larger cities 
contemporaneous with the disappearance of other churches. 
There are some cities in which the decline of parishes in 
other denominations, witnessed by withdrawals, mergers, 
and the sale of old buildings, has been going on the very 
while that Episcopalians have been erecting the finest 
churches in America. Possibly not all the factors involved 
are entirely creditable. The influence of fashion may 
account for some of it. The strange perversity of human 
nature not to resent but to respect pretense and exclusiveness 
also accounts for some of it. Superior organization and 
foresight are an important part of it. But the most impor- 
tant factor is the appeal of the richer spiritual culture and 
the superior artistry, both architecturally and liturgically. 

Meanwhile, there are extremely notable individual ex- 
periments among the free churches in the greater usage of 
mediaeval forms. The most extensive of these is undoubt- 
edly that of Dr. W. E. Orchard at King's Weigh House 
Chapel, London. The published liturgy of his church contains 
ten regular and several special orders of service, litanies, 
daily offices, and collects. In the main its prayers follow 
those of the Book of Common Prayer. The order for the Com- 
munion services follows the Roman Catholic Ordinary as 
nearly as Protestant doctrine will permit. Orders of service in 

• 122- 




Allen & Collens, Architects. 

SKINNER MEMORIAL CHAPEL • HOLYOKE ■ MASSACHUSETTS 

A Congregational Church with a chancel. True to the Gothic spirit in 
its proportions. It is long, narrow, and high. 



Church Unity 

the Second Parish Church of Boston, Massachusetts, and in 
the Second Parish Church of Newton, Massachusetts, are 
distinguished by extensive drawing upon mediaeval liturgi- 
cal sources, forms, and customs. The services of the Union 
Church of Winnetka, Illinois, and others, contain prayers 
from the Book of Common Prayer, together with congrega- 
tional responses from the same source, or rather from the 
more ancient sources. 

The illustrations of this volume will amply reveal the 
fact, also, of the revival of mediaeval forms in church build- 
ing. Several liberal churches have restored the altar, some 
make use of candles, and many have revived the chancel. 
The rapid increase in the choice of the Gothic style of build- 
ing, not only amongst the Episcopal churches, but by 
Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, Lutheran, Re- 
formed, and Baptist parishes, is a notable fact which no one 
who wishes to study religious tendencies can afford to ignore. 

These things are very powerful. A solid structure of brick 
and stone, of large size, and of great beauty, spreads an 
influence and speaks its message for many years. A Gothic 
building is in itself a definite message, and probably many 
of those who have chosen this style were well aware of what 
it means and deliberately desired to say that thing to the 
people. All these facts, taken together, constitute a remark- 
able tendency of many modern men to revalue some of the 
excellencies of pre-Reformation religion. 

Meanwhile, other modern men are seeking a way out of 
the unhappy divisions of Protestantism by the hope of a 
church which may gather to itself all the spiritual elements 
and traditions of the community, including the aspirations 
of the outsider as well as of the churchman. The Commu- 
nity Church idea is in the air and is in some important 
instances a concrete experiment. No one has as yet just 
precisely denned what it is with sufficient clarity to be con- 
vincing. In general, it is not a Federated Church, nor a 
Union Church, but something inclusive of these and of 
other factors besides. I do not know that there is as yet a 
single organization, strictly speaking, in existence in any 
community. There are communities in which there is only 

.125. 



Art & Religion 

one Protestant church, having no particular denominational 
connection. There are towns where there is only one church, 
and that one connected with a denomination, though some 
of its members may be active in the national affairs of other 
bodies. I know of no Community Church which includes 
Roman Catholics and Jews, unless they have left their 
previous standing. 

Portland, Maine, has a town music hall, municipal organ, 
and organist, where at the public expense there are con- 
ducted programs of music, at which also — and this is the 
significant point — there are addresses calculated for the 
public good, by clergymen of different sects. Something very 
like this seems to be forecast by the plans on foot in many 
towns for the construction of Civic or Community Centers. 
If you will follow the architectural journals for a while, 
you will run upon designs for a good many such buildings. 
It is not to be supposed that these buildings will house a 
program of merely physical or social activities. They will 
also develop community dramatics and probably many of 
them become forums for the discussion of public affairs. 

Here are two definite tendencies in the life of the day, 
seemingly entirely opposed to each other. But the urgency 
under each of them is probably much more nearly the same 
than appears. They are both, at least, profound expressions 
of the inadequacy of typical Reformation Protestantism as 
it has been worked out by the logic of individualism, sepa- 
ratism, and the consequent starvation of the fuller man- 
hood. Both are dissatisfied with the final product of the 
Reformation age. 

The one group would find a more abundant life by the 
recovery of some of the lost treasures in the total historic 
spiritual experience of Christendom. The other would en- 
large the basis of its spiritual life by reaching forward to 
give expression to the more inclusive and the more coopera- 
tive ideals of the new democracy. No one can now say how, 
but it is open for all to forecast and to labor for the inclu- 
sion of both forms of riches in the life of the future church. 

The protagonists of the Community Church have not as 
yet sufficiently valued many of the timeless elements in 

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Church Unity 

historic Christian experience. They have not sufficiently 
weighed the profound conservatism of human nature. They 
have not sufficiently studied history to understand that 
almost every reformer and prophet has turned to some 
more ancient and venerable age for the sanction and 
authority of his message. As Jeremiah recalled the primitive 
pastoral life of his race, as Jesus quoted the great eighth 
century prophets, as Luther passed over mediaevalism to 
rediscover the Scriptures, so every reformer the more readily 
persuades conservative human nature to the acceptance of 
his new truth by asserting that it is really not new. 

The history of human culture is a continuum. Culture in 
general, including religious culture, will always draw 
largely upon the past. This does not mean that the values 
to be discovered in the past are merely antiquarian or artis- 
tic either. The moral message of the Hebrew prophets is 
still pertinent and will continue to be so for many genera- 
tions. The moral implications of the teaching of Jesus are 
still revolutionary. 

But if the life of the past is still valuable to us in the 
sphere of action, where presumably there are to be expected 
constant changes of standard, how much more may the life 
of the past be valuable to us in the sphere of beauty and 
human feelings about it, which is more nearly unchanging 
in its quality. This means that humanity will still continue 
to be inspired by the moods, passions, apprehensions, and 
inner joys of the great souls of the race. Why should this be 
less true in religion than in literature and the other arts'? 

The plain conclusion of these facts is that we do not want 
any Community Church if it means that we are to be cut 
adrift from the inestimable treasures of devotion that are 
our Christian inheritance. The inheritance of the near past 
will perhaps be destined to be no less powerful than that 
of the more remote days. The average American Christian 
has no intention whatever of giving up his connection with 
historic Christianity. However lacking the common Ameri- 
can church may seem to the critical analyst, whether of the 
riches of the historic church, or the riches of the coming 
social light, it is still the most powerful thing in the national 

• 127 • 



Art & Religion 

life. It can be changed and improved ; I do not believe with 
Mr. Jackson, the author of "The Community Church," that 
it can be obliterated. It is a going concern, and with all its 
weaknesses, it is after all the nearest thing we have, both 
to the historic treasures and to the future free thought. 

The ordinary American town still receives more enrich- 
ing contact with the past and more enlivening ideals for 
the future from the average church than from any other 
source. It would be folly for statesmen, political or reli- 
gious, to underestimate the resources whether of material 
property or of moral idealism in the Protestant churches of 
America. 

The recent vigorous book of the Rev. John Haynes 
Holmes, "The Revolutionary Function of the Modern 
Church, 5 ' also is skeptical of the values of the old organi- 
zations as a basis for the church of the new age. He appears 
to be endeavoring to justify the development of a religion 
so far eclectic that it no longer regards itself as specifically 
Christian. He sees the individualistic method, as well as the 
individualistic philosophy, as the only characteristic of 
Christianity. He is hopeless of organized Christianity get- 
ting away from the sole function of saving persons. "With 
the weak, tempted, imperfect individual, the work of the 
church must begin; and beyond this weak, tempted, and 
imperfect individual, I cannot see that this saving work 
can ever go."* For this reason he says that "the churches 
of today are not worthy of support." 

I fear the prosperity of the typical American Protestant 
church, as it is today, almost as much as he does. I also be- 
lieve it to be inadequate to the new age, but I am not hope- 
less of it. There is in it more than he credits of the very social 
spirit which he sets forth so cogently. There is in it also 
a very reasonable conservatism which is not willing wholly 
to lose the continuity and power that it has until the pro- 
posals for change are made much more clearly. And this 
conservatism is the more reasonable, when the carelessness 
of the average unchurched person is more clearly recognized 
than by these writers. Criticism of the church is often born 

* The Revolutionary Function of the Modern Church," p. 18. 

• 128- 






Church Unity 

of irresponsibility. The wise social student is cautious about 
expecting too much from the Outsider, as well as willing to 
credit the virtues of the Insider. Even Dr. Holmes appeals 
to Jesus the reformer. He draws a true and moving picture 
of the supreme effort of Jesus to reform the legal and moral 
system of the nation as well as to reform persons. 

Why, then, abandon the Christian Church? There is a 
genuinely hopeful movement in the Protestant world, which 
I expect will some day spread into the Roman Catholic 
world, for a new loyalty to the real Jesus and to his reli- 
gion and ethics, including their thoroughgoing applications 
to industry and government, including the imitation of his 
life of reform as well as his life of personal piety. 

The Community Church idea would come to us all more 
commendably if it were presented in a more unbiased way. 
There are many men no less interested in the improvement 
of society than these men, and no less interested in a future 
free thought in all directions. But the very reason alleged 
by some advocates of the Community Church for leaving 
off the distinctive appeal to the inner and spiritual authority 
of Jesus, is our very reason for retaining it. There is no 
fellowship so liberating as his. If ever there was a fresh 
and free mind it was his. To some of us there is no imagin- 
able symbol of liberty and progress and free-mindedness 
so true or suggestive as that of the personality of the real, 
historic Christ. It is just because we want to be guarded 
against narrownesses, rather than the contrary, that we hold 
to him. 

There is much more yet to come, however, from the com- 
munity religion movement, both of ideas and definite experi- 
mentation. The writings of Mr. Joseph Ernest McAfee 
along these lines, lacking in concreteness partly because it is 
not yet time to be concrete, are especially valuable for their 
urgence of inclusiveness and their hopes of religious democ- 
racy. 

Meanwhile we are not going back to a papal Catholicism, 
nor even to forms and assumptions that are chiefly mediae- 
val without being papal. And it is inconceivable that the 
bulk of American Protestantism, so various in racial and 

• 129- 



Art & Religion 

ecclesiastical traditions, can be compressed into the moulds 
of the Anglican forms. The authoritative assumptions of the 
Episcopal body are entirely unacceptable to the typical 
American Christian. He cannot accede to the conception of 
a faith once delivered to the bishops. Nor can he be satisfied 
with a compression of his modes of utterance, either archi- 
tecturally or liturgically, into the too rigid forms of that 
tradition. 

Why, then, bother about it? Because these forms are the 
best perpetuation among us of the total history of Christen- 
dom. Because, though our fathers may have been French, 
Swiss, Bohemian, Norwegian, or what not, we speak the 
English tongue. Because the English Prayer Book is our 
most direct point of contact with the devotional treasures 
of the Christian ages and because the best psychology of 
worship is found in the usages under discussion. 

I have always been a believer in the flank attack in de- 
bate. It is better not to contend all your opponent's points 
of view, but to admit all you can, holding out against the 
irreducible remainder. It is a quality of human nature to 
hold more steadfastly to its customs than to its ideas. If the 
future Protestant churches of whatever denomination could 
revive every possible mediaeval form or custom judged to 
be valuable on its own merits, the movement would go 
very far toward promoting church union. The Lutheran 
bodies have all retained a larger usage of past forms than 
the more free churches. The Reformed bodies use a liturgy 
based upon the common mediaeval sources more nearly than 
do Presbyterians or Baptists, Bucer of Strassburg having 
been in England as a consultant at the very formation of 
the English Prayer Book. 

Moreover, what is to be the future of the Roman Catho- 
lic Church? Must we forever assume an insoluble dilemma 
of divided Christendom? Can we afford to concede that we 
are at a permanent impasse? In a fair and vivid paragraph, 
Dr. Newman Smyth describes the divergent ideas of the 
church as held by Catholics and Protestants, closing his 
series of contrasts with this : "According to the one, the out- 
standing Church figure is the priest; according to the other, 

.130. 



Church Unity 

the prophet."* It would be valuable if we might all so far 
lay aside prejudices as to consider what further he has to say 
about the future mergence of these two conceptions. "The 
Catholic idea is certainly here to stay. But so is the Protes- 
tant. ... A fundamental education in religious values 
alone can cause these two ideas to coalesce and point the 
way to their final union in the truly Catholic Church. The 
Protestant must come to apprehend the indispensability 
of the Catholic position; and the Catholic must learn to 
recognize the validity of the Protestant witness; and to- 
gether they must mount to the higher Truth which includes 
them both. . . . What we need to pray for, then, is not 
that this or that experiment of reunion shall succeed, not 
that this or that plan of an interlocking Church relationship 
shall work out, but that these two great contrasting Church 
positions and ideas, each with a noble history, each with 
spiritual first-fruits to justify its truth, each firmly im- 
bedded in the religious consciousness of our time and of all 
time, shall come to understand each other; more than this, 
shall come to understand that each has that to give the other 
without which it cannot fully realize its own true, best 

life."t 

If anyone is able to share such a grand hope, it is indeed 
an added reason for finding and using all the possible good 
forms of the old body. If the Protestant world could 
freshly study the whole subject of the art of worship open- 
mindedly, there is no question whatever but that it would 
produce new inventions of form. There is equally no ques- 
tion but that it would also revive much good psychology 
and much detailed material from the usages of the ancient 
Church. In this attempt, I mean not merely a study of 
artistry, superficially, but of the meanings of symbols and of 
sacraments, both old and new, which in a general usage of 
the words are comprised in the category of the art of wor- 
ship. 

Such a procedure would not only immensely forward 

* "Approaches towards Church Unity," Newman Smyth and Williston 
Walker, p. 86. 

j Ibid., pp. 87-90. 

131. 



Art & Religion 

efforts toward Protestant unity, but would also place the 
whole of Protestantism in a most favorable position for the 
future possibilities of a genuinely united Christendom. 
Moreover, such a procedure would not discourage, but 
rather foster, the development of a united Church of Christ 
expectantly open to the newer and later lights of the Divine 
Spirit. 

What I have been trying to say might be summed up in 
the remark that the mystic experience is much the same 
thing, whatever its mental content either theologically or 
morally, and that this experience is therefore the natural 
meeting ground of union. I have already suggested certain 
identities of the aesthetic and mystical life. In a later chap- 
ter is described the psychological order of the experience. 

That order is the same emotionally and vitally, whatever 
realities or conceptions originate it or whatever ethical pur- 
poses eventuate from it. Mysticism alone has never yielded 
a distinctive theology, but rather a distinctive psychology. 
The world of the arts by itself has never yielded a distinc- 
tive morality, but rather the passion for whatever morality 
is carried to it. Men may differ in their beliefs and in their 
ethics; the inner process of the enjoyment of their faith is 
the same. As the conscience tells all men that they ought, 
but not to all men, in the same way, what they ought, to do, 
so worship is the same whatever its content. No category 
of thought, therefore, nor of ethics, can yield the same hope 
of union as that contained in the essential commonness of 
the nature of worship. 



132 



Chapter XIV : Technique and Freedom 

THERE is no more important practical subject than 
that of freedom. We of the "free churches" value 
our liberty. Constantly we reiterate the fact and the 
virtues of free, spontaneous prayer and unstereotyped public 
worship. We are prone to consider a liturgy or a rite as a 
form of bondage. We claim the right of free thought un- 
authorized by bishop or Bible or creed. We almost wholly 
misconceive the nature and the source of freedom. Our con- 
ception of spiritual and ecclesiastical freedom is often as 
childish and wrong as many popular notions of personal, 
industrial, or political liberty. 

Freedom is not acquired simply by release from law or 
sanction or authority or technique. Liberty is not negative 
but positive. It is derived, always, from some new and com- 
manding principle or from some new mastery of technical 
processes. Freedom is not the gift of formlessness but the 
mastery of form. 

The effect of the teaching of Jesus was to free the Chris- 
tian community from the old Jewish law. What was the 
thing that made them free? Certainly not simply making a 
declaration, certainly not a mere "kicking over the traces." 
They did neither of these things. The thing that made them 
free was their own inner acceptance of the new Christian 
principle of love. Without this, they had far better have 
stayed under the holding authority of the old law. 

The acquisition of a positive freedom is always harder 
than it appears to be. We are wrongly given to regard the 
release from the old tyranny as the essence of liberty. It is 
rather only the opportunity of liberty. Liberty must be 
acquired and established by some new and self-imposed 
regulation. The American colonies were not really free and 
independent states until the struggles of the Constitutional 
Convention had given them a new instrument of cohesion 

•133- 



Art & Religion 

and stability. The criminal released from prison is not really 
a free man until his definite devotion to a new labor has 
reestablished his feet in the path of hope and progress. The 
scientist is not free to move with authority and precision 
through the mazes of his material until long toils have given 
him mastery over that material. The baseball pitcher is not 
free to place the ball exactly as he desires until long practice 
has given him the reward of a nearly perfect control. I am 
not free to paint a picture nor to play an organ because I 
have not acquired the necessary technique in these arts. 

It is a question whether the so-called free churches are 
free to do anything but perish. Independency can be devel- 
oped to such an extent as entirely to nullify the very free- 
dom sought for. Premature revolution has oftentimes 
defeated itself. In the hurly-burly of history, more than one 
group of protestants has separated itself only to find that its 
new organization was too slight and shifting a thing to 
sustain itself amidst the vast complications of civilized life. 
During several years of travel throughout our country, I 
was amazed at the remarkable intellectual and civic influ- 
ence of the New England and Puritan heritage in our 
national life. It is a grave question whether this brave and 
adventurous individualism, philanthropic in practice and 
progressive in thought, can sustain and perpetuate its own 
strain in the face of the competition of thicker-bodied move- 
ments. 

There is no citizen who so misreads the meaning of free- 
dom as the typical modern liberal. The "independent" in 
politics oftentimes discovers that he has no effective instru- 
ment whereby to influence the affairs of state, frequently 
being reduced to an obnoxious choice as between two almost 
equally offensive programs. Even more so, the moral and 
religious independent is ineffective in the deeper life of 
society. 

There are very large numbers of men today, men of 
public spirit and intelligence who stand outside the organ- 
ized efforts of moral education and social control. They are 
asserting their freedom. They think they have found a 
liberty of conscience and of action untrammeled by the 

•134- 



Technique and Freedom 

alleged narrowness of any ecclesiastical organization. But 
their freedom is a very specious thing. Instead of acquiring 
freedom for themselves they have thrown it away and 
placed it where it ought not to be. Without even a fight for 
it, they have given a "free hand" to the forces of conserv- 
atism or of reaction. 

There is no more profound problem in sociology than just 
this matter of the incoherence of liberalism. Men of inde- 
pendent mind are by their very nature individualistic. And, 
unfortunately, the revolt of each is likely to be due to some 
slightly different cause. It is hard for liberals to agree, 
harder for them to accept any new partisan bondage. But 
without agreement and without definite organizational in- 
struments there can be no positive freedom. 

These men are, strictly speaking, not free at all to affect 
the life of the state as they would like. They have misinter- 
preted freedom. They are only free to wring their hands in 
futile protest. They should, rather, intelligently face the 
fact that a large part of the moral education of the youth 
of America is in the hands of religious and moral conserva- 
tives. 

The liberal vainly wonders why he cannot affect the 
prejudiced minds of adult citizens, the same while that he 
allows the minds of youthful prospective citizens to be bent 
in wrong directions from the very start. In other words, the 
freeman is not free to affect the life of his time until he has 
acquired, perhaps at a cost that seems to limit his freedom, 
an instrument which he can use effectively to promote his 
ideals of the social welfare. 

These remarks I am making for two reasons. They sug- 
gest a line of thought and a series of problems pertinent to 
the general point of view of this whole book, the view that 
the individualistic temper of the Reformation age must be 
modified by new forms of cooperation or cohesion which will 
be characteristic of the new age. The most of these problems 
lie outside the range of the artistic interest we are pursuing. 
They form, however, a line of reinforcement to the urgence 
for church unity. And they serve to answer some of the 
objections to it. The free churches will be not less, but more, 

•135- 



Art & Religion 

free to wield the influence they desire according as they shall 
be willing to develop modifications in the direction of the 
new age commonality. 

The other reason for these remarks is that they constitute 
another illustration of the necessity for free ideas to find 
adequate symbols of expression or a definite technique if 
they are to be communicated in ordinary life. These con- 
siderations require an improved technique of worship in the 
Protestant world. 

The chair of homiletics is an old institution in our schools 
of theology, a recognition of the necessity of technique in 
the sermon. Not nearly enough instruction in the technique 
of public prayer has been provided. On the whole, the aver- 
age minister's sermons are far superior in variety, structure, 
diction, and good taste, to his prayers. The prayer is far the 
more difficult exercise. The limits of propriety as to its 
form of discourse, choice of words, imagery, and other 
factors are much more narrow and exacting than for that of 
any other human utterance. 

Almost all those who attempt a critical improvement of 
public prayer have found it valuable to requisition more or 
less material from the old books of devotion, the Psalms or 
other prayer books. They have done this, not by way of dis- 
placing spontaneous expression, but rather by way of an 
added value and an improved background, as Dr. Orchard 
suggests: "the intention being to create an atmosphere of 
devotion and to provide a background of prayer, rather than 
attempting to force individual aspirations into a prescribed 
form, or pretending to cover the complete exercise of prayer. 
Rightly understood by those who lead, liturgical prayer may 
therefore be a greater encouragement to 'free' prayer than 
the often too dominating, individualistic, and complicated 
utterances which have come to be thus exclusively de- 
scribed."* 

It is highly questionable whether the new technique can 
be adequate without a new service book. So-called non- 
liturgical churches have been proud of their freedom from a 
prayer book. Yet more and more it becomes evident that 

* W. E. Orchard, "The Order of Divine Service," Preface, p. 5. 

• 136- 



Technique and Freedom 

some kind of public liturgy is necessary. Most of our denom- 
inational publishing houses issue books of prepared service 
forms. The Reformed Church has always had a liturgy. The 
Presbyterian Book of Common Worship was copyrighted in 
1905. The Unitarian hymnal contains a complete order of 
service for each Sunday of the month. Notable publications 
have been issued by local parishes such as that of the First 
Congregational Society, St. Louis, Missouri, in 1845, an d 
of Second Parish Church, Boston, in 1914. The most recent 
published liturgy is the Order of Divine Service for Public 
Worship, Oxford Press, 1919, following the usages of the 
King's Weigh House Chapel, London. 

None of these will be found wholly satisfactory by the 
average Protestant church. It is noteworthy that all of them 
draw heavily, both as to form and materials, from the Eng- 
lish Book of Common Prayer. I have already suggested why 
the great Prayer Book cannot be used as it stands. Dr. Percy 
Dearmer in his recent and valuable book, "The Art of Wor- 
ship," suggests important improvements in the English 
ritual. 

Considerable changes and additions are proposed by offi- 
cial bodies now at work on the subject. The English "Report 
of the Archbishop's Committee of Inquiry on the Worship 
of the Church" and the American "Report of the Joint Com- 
mission on the Book of Common Prayer" were both pub- 
lished in 1919. But the changes suggested are insufficient for 
winning any considerable following outside the Episcopal 
Communion. If the Episcopal Church could more fully 
understand the points of view of the free churches, it might 
be persuaded of the great opportunity before it, should it be 
willing to make important changes in the liturgy. If it does 
not do this, we need a new service book. 

Perhaps such a book is an impossibility for the early 
future. Its preparation would require not only study and 
collation, but wider popular experimentation, before a 
usable and satisfactory manual could be produced. 

It is earnestly to be hoped that some great university may 
establish a Chair of Liturgies in order to centralize scholar- 
ship in the subject and also promote popular experimenta- 

•137- 



Art & Religion 

tion and collate its results. If such a foundation could also 
be related to university extension work, it would constitute 
a great aid to one of the deepest needs of the times in the 
religious and moral world. The ministers are thirsty for 
help in this department. The character of the subject is such 
that popular experimentation is insufficient; it requires also 
scholarship. The historical and psychological studies, to- 
gether with the philosophical and aesthetic considerations 
involved, are of such a nature as to call for the cooperation 
of the centers of learning, as well as the actual practice of 
ecclesiastical institutions. 

I do not mean to suggest that a new service book is all that 
we need in this direction. The worship of the future church 
will include many varieties of expression not to be com- 
pacted in any formal liturgy. It will always have need for 
the free, spontaneous, public meeting style of exercise. It 
will develop many kinds of specially prepared orders for 
occasional uses, some of great elaboration. It will call forth 
gifted individuals, who will devise original usages as they go 
along. An example of this last suggestion is the work but 
recently opened in London by Dr. Percy Dearmer and Miss 
Maude Royden. 

All these considerations do not render less desirable a 
service book which can be the steady "Ordinary" of the 
usage. Such a book, however, should contain a variety of 
services, both as to form and content. The old Book of 
Common Prayer does not have sufficient variety in either. 
Dr. Orchard's book contains a number of services with dif- 
fering content, but none sufficiently differing in fomi from 
the regular service. 

One of the important needs, demanding a variation in 
form, is that, of the small church, which may be oftentimes 
without a minister. Some of our home mission churches 
would be greatly benefited if they could have a service book 
which contained a simple, practicable order that could be 
read by one of the elders or deacons. Man3 r of our average 
churches would not wish to use an order that could be well 
managed only on a larger scale. The book needed should 
cover these varied requirements for usual Sunday services, 

• i 3 8- 



Technique and Freedom 

without attempting to provide for the more extraordinary 
occasions. 

Meanwhile, there is needed among the free churches more 
attention to the psychology of the subject, both in the large 
and with respect to seemingly trivial details. One illustra- 
tion will suffice to indicate the kind of analysis needed at 
many points. 

Not long since, the choir director of our church desired 
to place a particular solo immediately before the sermon in 
the regular service. We tried it, but the effect was decidedly 
unfortunate. And the reason is perfectly clear. There should 
not be a work of art of this kind immediately before a long 
address. If the music is not good, it should not be there, any- 
way. If it is good, if it succeeds in giving to people the imag- 
inative lift which any work of art should do, the following 
moment is not the one for the opening of a sermon. An imag- 
inative preparation of that sort should be followed imme- 
diately by something impressive, a prayer, a scripture, or a 
very brief and quiet word of address. 

A sermon should not begin impressively. It should begin 
interestingly, but the heavier burden of impression should 
come with the climax and at the close. Therefore, some more 
common and ordinary exercise, such as a hymn, should 
immediately precede the sermon. If the order of worship has 
developed an imaginative outlook and an emotional power 
by itself, the cycle of its psychological course should be 
brought to a certain conclusion before the beginning of the 
sermon. There should be something to ground the atten- 
tion after the first emotional lift, something to bring back 
the whole situation, so to speak, to "neutral clutch." An 
artistic solo does not do this. It does too much. Something 
else is required, which will enable the sermon to begin lower 
down as it were, and then lead to a fresh ascent of the emo- 
tions. I speak of this in detail merely to indicate the neces- 
sity for a similarly critical examination of other materials 
which the artist in worship may utilize as he becomes profi- 
cient in the technique of his art. 

These materials of the artist in worship consist of other 
things besides music, readings, and prayers. They may in- 

• 139- 



Art & Religion 

elude also any little physical exercises such as receiving the 
collection plates, and placing them upon a table or treasury; 
appropriate vestments for minister and choir ; a processional 
movement of singers; or other devices which add objective 
interest to the service. It is becoming more and more common 
for churches of various denominations to clothe their choir 
in some uniform garment. The reasons are obvious. It not 
only nullifies the disagreeable effect of otherwise discordant 
colors, or differences of richness in personal apparel, but 
gives a positive effect of order and harmony, and hence of 
beauty. 

There are also an increasing number of churches which 
appreciate both the dignity and the modesty of having the 
minister wear a quiet robe. Meanwhile there are some 
churches in which the beauty of the service is increased, 
according to their taste, by certain appropriate and interest- 
ing usages of color. The joy of religion is not sufficiently 
symbolized if the prevailing note is black. 

Even the most independent of all the churches have never 
felt the necessity for discouraging any of these develop- 
ments. In the "Handbook of Congregationalism," by the 
Rev. Henry Martyn Dexter, D.D., is the following para- 
graph: "As already suggested, Congregationalists enjoy a 
larger liberty in respect to all things which have been in this 
chapter discussed, than is within the constitutional reach of 
Christians of other polities. Any Congregational church, 
whose taste and sense of expediency may so incline it, is at 
perfect liberty to order its worship by the liturgy of the 
Church of England, or the Protestant, or Reformed Episco- 
pal Church of the United States, or by a liturgy of its own. 
So long as it do nothing which shall give reasonable ground 
of offense to the other churches with which it is in fellow- 
ship, it may order its prayers, its praise, and all the methods 
of its worship, to its own entire content; and its pastor, 
remaining true to our fundamentals of doctrine and of 
polity, though enrobed and endowed with 'Chasuble, Albe, 
Amice, Stole, Maniple, and Zone, with two blessed Towels, 
and all their Appendages,' would remain, in good faith and 
entirely, a Congregational minister still." 

• 140- 




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Made by Arthur J. Stone. 




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ALTAR CROSS 
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Made by G. Troccoli. 



Technique and Freedom 

The very words of Dr. Dexter's paragraph indicate, how- 
ever slightly, some of the rich things in the past of the 
Christian Church which Protestants have largely forgotten 
or have never known. Some of these past riches are wonder- 
fully worth recovering; other such like riches we may create 
for ourselves, and indeed are beginning to create. It is not 
generally known how many works of artistic merit are now 
being produced by the different societies of arts and crafts 
for the churches, many of these for the free churches. Excel- 
lent handwork in silver, precious stones, glass, metals, tex- 
tiles, oak, brass, and printing is being done in larger and 
larger quantity. The revival of artistic interest in the older 
churches has called forth a steady stream of chalices, crosses, 
pyxes, vestments, reredos, pulpits, altars, windows, altar 
books, Bibles, and other objects, each of them designed for a 
definite and fitting place in a finished technique of worship. 

Not only in ritualistic churches, but amongst the free 
churches, are there many new buildings where the minor 
objects are finely and beautifully wrought, although prop- 
erly subordinated by the simplicity of the larger structural 
lines and spaces. Symbolic carvings in the stones of doorway 
arches, pier heads and towers; figures in relief on pulpits, 
chairs, tables, screens, or pews; candlesticks, candelabra, and 
hanging lamps; plates, fonts, panels, hardware, and organ 
cases; embroidered bookmarks and altar covers; pictorial 
figures or significant designs painted on glass and in some 
cases on walls; all these are more and more being recognized 
as important adjuncts to the materials in the hand of the 
artist in worship. 

It is easy to condemn this tendency out of hand. It is 
better to try to understand it and use it aright. The hunger 
for beauty is a God-given desire in human nature. It may 
be denied and sacrificed when pressing concerns call for stern 
and heroic measures : it is to be feared when it becomes glut- 
tonous: in healthy normal life it must be satisfied. I have 
not denied that beautiful symbolic objects are dangerous. 
But they are at once less dangerous and far more refining 
than other modes of the corporeal display of religious faiths 
and feelings. If it is possible for a love of beautiful things 

•H3- 



Art & Religion 

to become debased into merely sensuous pleasure, that same 
love of beauty is for many a religious soul a genuine spirit of 
reverence. Protestants would do well to recognize a certain 
profound piety moving in and through the impulse to 
beautify the House of God and all things that have to do 
with the setting and scene where people meet to worship 
God. 

The necessity for improvement in the art of worship is 
evident to larger and larger numbers of clergymen. There 
is on the whole a large amount of experimentation going on 
in all these matters. It is not desirable to curtail but rather 
to promote this. Much more is needed before any general 
unification of forms and usages will be either possible or 
desirable. The broad principle which I have to suggest for 
the study of the liturgy as a whole is developed in the next 
two chapters. 

But improved forms there must be and will be in the great 
new age before us. The lover of freedom who wants to get on 
without form is not enough of a lover of freedom for the 
new day. He needs to enlarge both the scope of his own 
desires and the price he is willing to pay for their satisfac- 
tion. Freedom is not derived simply from absence of form, 
either in prayer or ecclesiastical organization or in any other 
category: it comes from the mastery of form. Bad form is 
ugly and tyrannical. To live without form is to live futilely. 
Good form may be the very vehicle and guarantee of free- 
dom. Freedom in the experience and in the expression of 
worship is the gift of technique in the art of worship. 



144 



Chapter XV : The Mysticism of Isaiah 

POSSIBLY the experience of beauty is the same thing 
as the experience of worship. Some of its elements, 
at least, would appear to be identical with the course 
of that illumination described by Isaiah as the mystical 
source of his prophetic insight and power. 

The experience begins with attention to some object, that 
body of beauty or reality outside us which induces the ex- 
perience. I do not pause here for any discussion of what 
might be called the mystic's preparation, the process of 
elimination, the cutting away of other objects and interests 
and desires, both outer and inner, which would prevent 
entire absorption in the single and supreme object. The great 
worshipers have always insisted upon this preparation and 
have themselves practiced the most severe rigors to ensure its 
character. 

But we are here, rather, beginning on the lower and ordi- 
nary plane of the experience of beauty, which may befall 
without any preparation. The object presents itself; we are 
passive. "Sir Henry Irving 'presents' Macbeth." So a flower, 
the light on a wide water, an opera, a poem, a statue, a song, 
a noble building, a symphony, a mountain, presents itself to 
us; it comes forward to meet us, it enlarges, it draws and 
absorbs, it becomes for the moment our world. So, too, if the 
object be seen of the inner eye only — humanity, the uni- 
verse, God. 

The first reaction or feeling is that of self-abnegation, 
littleness, humility. You go to the opera and say, I could 
never write an opera like that if I lived a thousand years. 
You ride alone over the desert. The weight of years, the 
spaces of land and sky overwhelm you. This body of loveli- 
ness, a rose, a sonata, so finished and exquisite, this inde- 
scribable perfection of form or color or sound, this is of 
another order and another world than your own. It humbles 

• 145- 



Art & Religion 

and belittles. You are outclassed. You feel small ; your own 
life and labor and lot are not right or good to you now that 
you have seen this excellence. You are dissatisfied with your- 
self and all your works. You have no taste for common life 
now that you have tasted God. Here — say you — here let me 
abide; here is life, life desirable and original and sweet, 
immortal life; here is my true home and dwelling place. 
Your common life seems pale and awry and wrong. You are 
ashamed of your achievement in the presence of this perfect 
beauty; you are humbled and penitent before the awful 
sublimities of the divine presentment. 

Then a strange thing happens, strange for its swift and 
powerful force. This body of beauty, this symbolized idea 
or truth, this great existence comes into you, fills and pos- 
sesses and enlarges you. You say, No, I could never write 
such an opera — no, but something I can do, something I, too, 
can make, with the same finish and power; I, too, can pro- 
duce a noble work, perfect as this vase or tower or starry 
heavens. Your humiliation is changed to dignity, your dejec- 
tion to exaltation. 

St. Augustine very precisely describes this swift change 
from penitence to salvation in the experience of worship, 
the experience of God. "I tremble and I burn; I tremble feel- 
ing I am unlike Him; I burn feeling that I am like Him." 
Self-abnegation is followed by self-realization, weakness by 
power. Your smallness is gone, your shame removed, and 
your sins forgiven. You experience ecstasy, renewal, salva- 
tion. Warrior kings have always known and used these 
power-engendering arts. The pipes and drums and bugles 
have always gathered troops and led them to the fray; they 
have put fire in the blood, courage in the heart, and probably 
actual physical strength in sinew and muscle. I believe that 
one of the unfailing accompaniments of a genuine experi- 
ence of beauty or a genuine experience of worship is a 
heightening of all the vital powers. 

Swiftly still the experience moves forward to another 
stage and scene. Between the single object and the fas- 
cinated eye there moves a screen of memory. Into this holy 
place obtrudes the common world. That ordinary life from 

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The Mysticism of Isaiah 

which you have come and to which you must soon return 
breaks in upon your mystic hour. But what a strange world 
it is. It cannot look the same, for now you have new eyes. 
You see it as from the heights. Your new vitality has given 
the imagination an unwonted lift and range. Here between 
the masses and harmonies of a symphony and your rapt 
sense there floats in the world of practical life, but it floats 
like clouds with ever changing shapes. Its values shift and 
change. The unworthy sinks, the true and the good emerge 
and grow. Faiths and hopes are given new life. Certain 
realities are freshly freighted with import and significance. 
Old things pass away, all things are become new. 

The mystics have always claimed new revelations. Ac- 
cording to the view we are considering, it is not really a new 
scene that is given in the experience of worship but a new 
eye to see ; not new truths but a new seer. The actual increase 
in physical and imaginative power in the midst of the ex- 
perience enables men to see their world more clearly and 
truly. It is questionable whether the experience of beauty as 
such gives any entirely new world, any improved morality. 
It seems rather to clarify the world that is brought to it. If 
that world already contains a noble and adequate ethical 
principle, it will be revivified and expanded, but not neces- 
sarily changed fundamentally. 

This would appear to be the explanation of the very dif- 
ferent thought content set forth by equally devoted and 
assured mystics. This would appear also to explain some- 
what the lack and shortage in the merely aesthetic world. 
The enjoyment of beauty is sought for its own sake by those 
who come to it without any previous moral ideal or purpose. 
To such the experience does not necessarily offer any moral 
content. The power and vitality engendered is consumed in 
its own fire and has no valuable practical issue. Many have 
defended this very conception as the true and characteristic 
aesthetic experience. I do not believe that it is, even from 
the strictly aesthetic point of view, certainly not from the 
fuller view of a more rounded ethical person. 

The experience, if true to type, then passes, still swiftly, 
to its final stage. Not long since you were saying, Here is 

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Art & Religion 

life, desirable and original; this is the moment I desire to 
stay, it is so fair. But into that moment came drifting the 
world of common life, faint and shadowy, obscuring the 
great object, perhaps to pass and return and pass again. At 
length it must remain, changed, clear, alluring, illumined. At 
some point comes the choice. You cannot stay in the theater 
all night, and soon you will not want to ; the flame dies out 
of the western sky and you are ready to let it pass; the 
singers wind out of the sanctuary, the temple courts will be 
silent soon, but not sooner than you are eager to be off on 
the enterprise you have seen to be right and good by the 
mystical light. In your heart is new loyalty and dedication, 
a clear and practical attitude toward the common world. 

If this is not good aesthetics, it is good religion. There is 
no sufficient reason to deny that it is good aesthetics, save an 
arbitrary definition and the limitation of the effect of beauty 
to the static only. So to limit the content of the experience is 
to foster aesthetic debauchery and the literal dissipation of 
the noblest human powers. The true experience of beauty 
and of worship would seem alike to have issue in this mood 
of consecration and purpose. 

Just this course of experience is described by the great 
eighth century prophet Isaiah as having been his "in the year 
that King Uzziah died." I know of no other writing which 
so brilliantly, briefly and completely sets forth the nature of 
a human experience of God, its character and consequences. 
With few and bold strokes, he draws a picture of religion — 
ecstasy, humility, salvation, clarification, consecration. He 
reports the power and effect of public worship and the whole 
course of his own repentance, cleansing, illumination, and 
enlistment. 

Isaiah was a man of extraordinary gifts of mind and 
person. He was a leader in the nation, a courtier, close to 
the throne and the affairs of state. On the death of his king, 
after a long and prosperous reign, he was disturbed and 
troubled by internal conditions of wrong and by impending 
perils from without dangerous to the nation and the royal 
power. Pondering these things, he went up to the temple of 
his God. There, whether it was the smoke that rose from the 

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The Mysticism of Isaiah 

great altar of sacrifice, or the music of the singers responding 
from side to side of the temple courts, or the golden figures 
of the winged cherubim, or all these together, something set 
his thoughts and imagination rising. He had a sense of the 
divine. He had an experience of the presence of God, in- 
effable and awful, like those of Paul and Augustine, Tauler 
and Saint Theresa. 

"In the year that king Uzziah died I saw . . . the Lord 
. . . high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. 
Above it stood the seraphims : each one had six wings ; with 
twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his 
feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, 
and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts : the whole 
earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved 
at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with 
smoke." 

Such an experience few men have in the course of mortal 
life. Plotinus said that in his lifetime he had enjoyed only 
four such supreme seasons of divine communion. Bernard 
wrote that only once or twice could a man rise to such a sense 
of the mystic union with God as he tried to describe. Yet 
something like this many men have and many times. 

Isaiah's first response to this sense of God was a feeling of 
great humility and sinfulness. He beheld how high and holy 
God is ; how unapproachable and awful and dangerous is his 
being and presence : 

"In the year that king Uzziah died I saw . . . the Lord 
. . . high and lifted up . . . 

"Then said I, Woe is me ! for I am undone; because I am 
a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people 
of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord 
of hosts." 

Then swiftly — as winds fly to fill the empty space, as 
waters rush through opened gates, swiftly as the Spirit of 
the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity ever moves 
to visit contrite hearts, so swiftly — 

"Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live 
coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from 
off the altar: and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, 

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Art & Religion 

this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, 
and thy sin purged." 

To have some sense of the universe, to behold the starry 
heavens, to see the lifted Christ, to think on God, and so to 
be overwhelmed, humbled, shamed at the littleness and sin 
of your life is to invite the coming of power, the rush of the 
wind of the breath of the Spirit of God to heal and cleanse, 
to fill and enlarge and restore and leave the joy of salvation. 

And then Isaiah remembered his common world, his city, 
his king, his nation with its troubled and perilous life. It had 
become clear to him what word needed to be said and he 
knew that he must say it. 

"Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall 
I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; 
send me." 

This is the course and order of an experience of worship, 
an experience of the sense of God — up from the world of the 
many to the overworld of the One, back to the world of the 
many to fulfil the will of the One. 

Something like the great experience of Isaiah is what the 
worship of the church ought to help people to have. Some- 
thing like that experience people do have over and again out- 
side of the church, not always or even usually complete, but 
rich, varied, overwhelming, exalting, enjoyable, vitalizing, 
in their contact with nature or the arts. 

We who love the church have ourselves chiefly to blame 
if so large a part of the community finds its instinct and 
desire for worship satisfied by the theater and the music hall, 
the museum of art, or the free and individual enjoyment of 
the out of doors. 

Yet the world of the artist and nature lover is also to 
blame that its culture of the spirit has so often stopped short 
of the true heights of the spirit. It has too often been content 
with an experience of lifted feeling without valuable prac- 
tical issue. It has tried to persuade itself that its own world 
is the only real world, a world of refuge from common life, 
a compensation for common toils. Religion would take up 
the common world and look at it with new eyes and go back 

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The Mysticism of Isaiah 

to it with new power and commitment, not compensating 
for common toils but suffusing them with its own glory. 

There are important differences between the aesthetic and 
the religious experiences. We are rather here interested in 
these points of likeness or perhaps more properly of identity. 
Entirely apart from the nature of the absorbing object, 
whether it be finite or infinite, and apart also from the moral 
or intellectual content of the experience, there would appear 
to be an identity in course or process or in some of the major 
elements of the sense of beauty and the sense of God. There 
is something about the experience, whether of art or of wor- 
ship, to be enjoyed for its own sake, an end in itself, but 
also something essentially untrue and wrong in any claim 
of mystic communion which does not result in new values 
seen in the common world, cleansing from littleness, sin and 
isolation, and the definite dedication to some service of that 
enlarged vitality engendered in the experience. 

Vision, Humility, Vitality, Illumination, Enlistment — 
these constitute the experience of worship, and these may all 
be kindled in the experience of beauty. 



151. 



Chapter XVI : The Order of the Liturgy 

THE order of service for public worship cannot be 
much improved until we discover or select a princi- 
ple to go upon. There has been more or less attempt 
at defining the functions of different liturgical parts and 
some analysis of their emotional effects. Here and there 
much good psychology has been applied to the betterment 
of ugly and disjointed orders of common worship. There has 
been discarding, enrichment, elaboration. But on the whole 
there is everywhere evidence of the merest patchwork and 
carpentry in the arrangement of the exercises of Protestant 
worship. What we first require is some guiding theory to 
help the practical problem of developing a unified, beauti- 
ful, and effective liturgy. 

The theory here proposed is a very simple one — that the 
outward expression in the service of worship should parallel 
the inner course of the experience of worship. The difficul- 
ties of this are many and great. The experience itself is com- 
plex and elusive and largely uncontrollable. It may happen 
on a sudden and unexpectedly; it may come when desired 
and prepared for; it may escape just when all the conditions 
seem most favorable. It may be long-sustained and filled 
with a variety of intellectual contents; it may be brief and 
pointed, its whole course finished in a few moments. How, 
then, give it concurrent expression in any manner so set and 
prearranged as an order of public worship? Nevertheless, 
through all the innumerable variations in stimulus, tone, 
intensity, content of ideas, recurrence, duration, conclusion, 
there would appear to be always in its normal course some- 
thing of each of the elements suggested — Vision, Humility, 
Exaltation, Illumination, Dedication. 

If this analysis of the experience is anything like correct, 
it would suggest, first of all, as applied to our practical prob- 
lem, public expression of that humility and sense of small- 

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The Order of the Liturgy 

ness which is the first natural response to the realities that 
induce the experience. This is precisely what all the old 
liturgies of the Christian church contain — Confitior, Kyrie 
Eleison, General Confession. 

It is true that the "sense of sin" seems not very prevalent, 
and is in some quarters thought to be an unworthy and un- 
necessary part of the religpus experience. But if we are at 
this point getting off the track religiously, a study of the 
artistic experience will speedily restore our spiritual nor- 
mality. It would appear to admit of no doubt that a sense 
of weakness, inadequacy, imperfection, is the first and often 
very powerful reaction to the presentation of whatever body 
of beauty really succeeds in reaching us. How much more 
is the same effect induced when we find ourselves set over 
against a real presentation of the whole of reality, of the 
being and presence of God. The sense of sin, the sense of 
personal delinquency and shame, of moral imperfection, of 
metaphysical smallness, of inconsequential selfhood, of indi- 
vidual guilt in social tragedy — this sense is neither un- 
natural nor forced nor weak nor out of date. It is a per- 
manent element in the spiritual experience of mankind, 
involved both in the experience of moral evil and the sub- 
stance of metaphysical limitations. If this be true, the 
expression of the experience is a proper and necessary part 
of the exercise of worship. 

The most of such exercises do include an expression of 
penitence. Usually, however, it receives too slight attention, 
a few phrases in the midst of a long prayer including many 
other feelings and ideas. Such a brief and incidental expres- 
sion of humility is altogether inadequate and ineffective. It 
should be one of the principal liturgical parts, — if possible 
expressed by all the people, rather than by the minister only, 
— though not necessarily a long part. And so it is in the old 
liturgies, which are at this point right, as the most of non- 
liturgical practice is wrong. Some of our recently improved 
Protestant services have therefore restored the use of the 
General Confession from the English Prayer Book. Others 
use the beautiful prayer in the Fifty-first Psalm, either in 

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Art & Religion 

unison or responsive recital. Others use freshly written 
prayers of confession. 

But this prayer should not be the first part of the service. 
The sense of smallness or the sense of sin or humility is not 
something you can produce out of your own consciousness; 
it happens to you. It is induced in you by the contact of 
something larger which humbles you, something better that 
shames you. Just here is a weakness of the Episcopal liturgy. 
There is nothing sufficiently impressive preceding the Gen- 
eral Confession to make you feel like confessing your sins. 

There is commonly a Processional Hymn, but the value 
of this is largely its effect as a curtain raiser that serves to 
focus scattered attention, merge the individuals into a 
congregation, and generally to warn everybody that the ex- 
ercise has begun. Following the hymn there is a call to 
worship and summons to repentance altogether too brief and 
too slender to work the miracle expected of it. 

This is probably the point of greatest weakness in most 
exercises of public worship. It would not be so if some 
spiritual preparation on the part of the average worshiper 
could be expected or counted upon, but it cannot be. People 
do not, as a matter of fact, arrive at church, after a late 
breakfast and the Sunday morning paper, at all prepared in 
spirit to fall upon their knees and confess their sins. I have 
at times felt like devising some sort of ante-chamber to the 
Lord's House, some place of purgation, some door of leaving 
behind, in order that people might be prepared worthily to 
worship and happily to enjoy its benefits, but this is doubt- 
less impractical. It is altogether possible, however, greatly to 
improve the opening of the service. 

A Processional Hymn, as suggested, is the oldest and best 
means for the very initial matter of unifying attention, 
without too much demand upon it at first. The usual Protes- 
tant practice opens the service with three or four items, each 
too brief or too familiar to be either very interesting or very 
impressive. They fail to take sharp hold upon the attention 
or to stir much of any movement amongst the emotive facul- 
ties of the worshiper. The Invocation is the only opportunity 
for fresh material, but so brief a prayer must needs be 

• 154. 



The Order of the Liturgy 

supremely well done to carry its effect. Not many men can 
do it supremely well. 

In the Roman Mass the priest's Preparation followed 
by the Introit is a more extended and impressive exercise, 
serving also to prepare the people to offer their own first 
prayer of confession in the Kyrie Eleison. All these parts 
are the same for every day except the Introit. This latter is a 
very interesting number, a curtailed relic of a longer antiph- 
onal exercise used in the earlier days of the church to open 
the service, different each day, in general announcing the 
special character and ideas of the day; this in turn going 
back to the antiphonal psalms of the Jewish liturgy. 

Here is something that can be effectively restored, yield- 
ing the value of ancient usages, but capable of fresh content. 
Why not displace the three or four ineffective items with 
which our service is usually opened, by a solid number, 
longer, more beautiful, more timely, more gripping and im- 
pressive? Such an Introit has been tried with very decided 
improvement in the dignity, interest, and imaginative con- 
tent of the early part of the service. It is a simple responsive 
service between minister and choir, the minister reading, the 
choir singing; two or three responses for each. It sets forth 
the theme of the day, or at least the area in which the theme 
lies. 

In actual practice it has been found eminently worth 
while freshly to select material for the Introit each Sunday, 
as nearly as possible that which would form an introduction 
to the thought of the sermon. There is a difference of opinion 
as to whether the service of worship should revolve about 
the same theme as the sermon. There are evidently advan- 
tages in a seasonal development of spiritual themes set forth 
in a church year arrangement of the liturgy independent of 
sermon themes. Such a plan assures a comprehensive charac- 
ter to the worship of the year, perhaps more full and better 
balanced than the sermon subjects are liable to be. Also it 
provides for a more or less complete setting forth of helpful 
spiritual suggestion for the worshipers, no matter what the 
subject matter of the sermon may be. On the other hand, 
there is undoubtedly great force in the arrangement of a 

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Art & Religion 

unified service from organ prelude to benediction, the 
sermon included. 

It must fairly be charged that in altogether too many free 
churches, the service of worship is neither one of these 
things. It does not form an interesting or a comprehensive 
course of experience by itself; it does not form a very exact 
introduction to the sermon. On the whole, it will probably 
be found that the average preacher covers a fairly wide 
range of ideas in the course of a year's work. He very natu- 
rally takes advantage of the more notable seasonal feelings 
and makes occasions for the presentation of those matters 
which relate to the practical parish life also. Some sort of 
church year plan is therefore very natural, if not inevi- 
table. It need not be rigid, as the old liturgies are, and 
should not be. 

It is possible for the most of the Sundays of the year to 
have a service of worship which fits naturally into a compre- 
hensive year plan, and which also is in itself, with the 
sermon, a completely harmonious presentation. I believe 
that each service should be a dramatic unity from start to 
finish. It is very difficult for this unity to make itself felt 
by all the worshipers unless at the very beginning of the 
service there is a strong, pertinent, and fairly full introduc- 
tory announcement of the thought of the day. 

The first value of an Introit is the increase in the sense of 
unity throughout the service, if this opening number has a 
sufficiently distinctive intellectual content to be noted at the 
moment, and later remembered, when the same thoughts 
appear in Scripture lessons, prayers, and in the sermon. 
There is certainly great value also in the fresh ideas of such 
an exercise as compared with the familiar material of the 
usual opening numbers — Call to Worship, Doxology, Invo- 
cation, Choir Response, Lord's Prayer, Gloria. The desirable 
sense of familiarity may be derived not from its content but 
from its form. In any work of art, form and content work 
together toward the total impression, the form serving to 
elevate and intensify the content. It is notable that the brief 
responses by the choir quiet and attract the hearers so that 
the intervening portions, as read, carry a more weighty im- 

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The Order of the Liturgy 

pressiveness. And if the content be fresh and pertinent, its 
ideas are eagerly attended to. 

Another great merit of such an exercise is the improve- 
ment in the dignity of music in the service. Members of the 
choir, singing in such a responsive service, seem not to be 
artists rendering a concert number, as too often they do in 
many church services, but rather ministers in the sanctuary 
taking part in the service of God. 

Another more subtle effect of the exercise is the result 
of its declarative character, the feeling that the Church has 
something definite to say. The sermon is the minister's word, 
the word of the prophet; the Scripture reading is the Bible's 
word; the words of the Introit, though they be taken largely 
from the Bible, seem somehow to be so set forth as to repre- 
sent rather the present faith and pronouncement of the 
Church, proclaiming the reality and nature of God. Such 
a note and such an impression are in this day of uncertain- 
ties more than ever needed. 

In our view, then, the ordinary Sunday service should be 
opened, not with the several brief and for the most part 
familiar numbers of the usual usage, but with a longer, more 
rich, freshly prepared exercise, presented by the minister 
and choirs, which is at once praise to God and pronounce- 
ment to the people. If this is successful, it becomes the pre- 
sentation of that reality over against which the smallness 
and weakness of human life become evident. It is the neces- 
sary antecedent to the experience of humility and the expres- 
sion of penitence. This expression should come next, in some 
prayer of general confession, as has been suggested. 

The low point in the experience does not last long, nor 
should its expression. The mystic alternation moves swiftly; 
the sense of fulness and the rushing tide of revival flow 
fast upon the acknowledgment of emptiness and unworthi- 
ness. Whoever beholds the truth and is humbled by it is 
speedily enlarged and elevated by it. Nothing is more uni- 
versally testified by artists and mystics alike than the 
heightened vitality and increased imagination produced in 
any real moment of direct and immediate experience of 
reality. 

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Art & Religion 

This sense of fulness must find early and rich expression 
in the service of worship. Only long experiment and patient 
observation can determine the best manner of this expres- 
sion. A doxology, a noble hymn of praise, a worthy anthem, 
may follow the prayer of confession, to give expression to 
the exaltation which presumably is the concurrent element 
in the experience as we are following its unfolding course. 

Henceforth we are on more difficult and complicated 
ground. For here begins occurrence of the practical world, 
the process of filling the imaginative forms with a definite 
intellectual content, the process of the back and forth swing 
between the One and the many, the peace and fulness of the 
One, the remembered urgencies of the many. 

Here lies the inadequacy of the world of the arts without 
religion and the definite morality demanded by definite reli- 
gious faith. It has not provided a sufficiently thoughtful 
moral content. In the order of worship, there should come, 
therefore, as they usually do, after the expression of exalta- 
tion, Scripture lessons and prayer. These exercises serve to 
fill with definite ideas the uplifted consciousness which is 
nevertheless as yet a vague and unordered one. They serve 
to call up the world of the many into the illuminated state 
and to begin the formation of working faiths. Miss Under- 
bill refers to them as "a group of actions which seem a fitting 
symbol of the varied powers and duties proper to that illum- 
inated consciousness, flowing out in charity to God and man, 
which has now been achieved."* 

In any case, the nature of the experience at this point is 
characterized by illumination, clarification, the rearrange- 
ment of all things as seen in the new light of all things. 
This is therefore the point in the service for whatever pre- 
sentation will help to make this experience definite. The 
reading of ancient Scriptures may serve to continue the 
declaration of universal or divine truths; or it may serve to 
set forth the record of previous human experience of the 
divine realities and powers ; or more probably it may do both 
for such of the hearers as have made a successful adventure 
thus far. 

* Underhill, "The Mystic Way," p. 348. 

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The Order of the Liturgy 

So, also, the prayers and collects in this part of the service 
should be largely of a pastoral character, serving to continue 
the sense of the divine outlook and to express the desires of 
the worshipers for the world and those whom they love in it, 
according as those desires have now been purified and inten- 
sified in the experience. 

Both of these exercises, presumably begun after the infill- 
ing and enlargement of the vital powers, constitute the 
remembrance of the practical world, now changed, revalued, 
glorified, as seen by the eyes which have been opened to the 
mystic vision. They fill with a definite moral content the 
otherwise vague and unreflective imaginative outlook. 

According to our theory, there should follow next an 
expression of faith. The worshiper having had presented to 
him a declaration of truth, or, inwardly, a vision of Divinity ; 
having expressed the humility and penitence that is his 
natural reaction; having shared the service of praise for the 
revival and enlargement next swiftly following; having seen 
with fresh eyes a new earth as well as a new heaven; he is 
prepared to say what it is that in the light of all these things 
he now believes. This is the point for whatever Credo the 
service contains. 

Protestantism, historically, has made much use of the 
recital of some creed. Of late larger and larger numbers of 
churches have omitted any such exercise, moved by the 
changes in thought and the frequent deprecation of creeds 
in general. It is, of course, only weak and foolish to be too 
easily swept off our feet by unintelligent outcry against 
creeds. You have to believe something or other before you 
can walk around the block. You certainly have to have some 
sort of working philosophy of life, however tentative or 
temporary, to form any kind of society. One of the effects of 
the artistic experience, as well as the religious experience, 
is to fix, at least for a time, a sense of whatever seems at the 
time to be valuable or real or important. This is precisely 
what a creed is. There is unquestionably very great good to 
be derived from the attempt to state as definitely and clearly 
as possible from time to time the central matters of one's 
belief. And if anyone objects too seriously to this, he may 

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Art & Religion 

always — after the fashion of Cicero concerning Carthage — 
write down as the last clause of his creed his belief that all 
these statements will some day be changed for the better. 

At this place in our own order of worship, we are just 
now using an arrangement which serves at once two or three 
purposes. After the period devoted to Scriptures and prayers, 
the people stand for a triple exercise, the familiar Doxology, 
a Confession of Faith, and the Gloria Patri. One of the uses 
of this plan is to relieve the recital of a confession from a 
certain abruptness and coldness which it might have by 
itself alone. A much more important purpose is the need for 
continuing throughout the service the sense of elevation and 
the praise expressing it which is, so to speak, one of the two 
poles of the alternating experience. Another purpose also 
achieved by this simple arrangement is the lessening of the 
number of times the congregation is required to stand or be 
seated during the service. 

There yet remains a final stage of the experience to be 
expressed in the service of worship, the mood of dedication, 
into which both the power and the ideas of the experience 
should be directed. The natural outlet for this mood is the 
offering. By itself, however, this is not sufficient to stand 
also for the larger consecration of the whole life, which 
should be felt and in some way symbolized in the service. 
There are interesting possibilities for experiment in the 
direction of a more complete expression of consecration than 
the most of our services contain, centered about the other- 
wise ugly exercise of taking up the collection. I have not met 
with any usages of this kind which are satisfactory. There 
is a fair field for any and all to try their hand at improve- 
ment in this particular. 

I am in this chapter not attempting to suggest precisely 
what details or features can best be utilized to carry out this 
conception of a liturgy, nor is this the place to discuss the 
innumerable possibilities of exceptional services prepared 
for occasions which contain in themselves rich suggestiveness 
of material. Nor am I here interested to promote any prac- 
tices which might be called bizarre, or even to discuss the 

• l6o • 



The Order of the Liturgy 

more brilliant possibilities open to such great churches as 
have at their command extraordinary resources of artistry. 

The object of this brief study is rather to propose a simple 
theory which can be used as a guide in our experiments for 
a more unified and beautiful order of worship. The changes 
involved in following this guide might not be so very great 
in many churches, superficially considered. The matter of 
particular importance just now is the discovery and applica- 
tion of such a guiding principle, which, if a true principle, 
may be applied to modest forms and materials and also to 
the use of the most difficult and extensive literary, musical, 
or ritualistic exercises. The theory we have been describing 
is that the order of worship should parallel the experience 
of worship. 

There should be, then, in any liturgy, first of all, some 
form of Presentation. How this shall best be accomplished 
is a matter for experimentation. Some will wish to include 
under this caption such items as Call to Worship, Invoca- 
tion, Scripture Reading, and Anthem; others may consider 
sufficient a brief Salutation before passing on to the next 
main division of the order; others will wish to make further 
trial of some such exercise as above described and called 
an Introit. In any case, assuming that we are attempting to 
follow this theory, the items of the first division of the ser- 
vice must be chosen for their usefulness as presentative or 
declarative material. 

The second main division in the order, if we are to 
parallel the experience, is a Prayer of Penitence. This may 
be spoken by the minister only, as representative of all, or 
by the whole congregation. It may be the same prayer for 
every service, or several prayers may be used in order. 

The third division is Praise. Here also different items may 
be included, such as a doxology, hymn, prayer of thanks- 
giving, anthem, or responsive reading. Whether one or all of 
these are used, the function and purpose are the same, to 
give utterance to the sense of revival and enlargement which 
is itself the most notable and characteristic element in the 
mystic experience. 

The next section should relate itself to that Illumination 

• 161. 



Art & Religion 

which presumably has been achieved, in some measure at 
least, or else the whole exercise is worthless. Here also there 
may be great difference of opinion as to what may best be 
used, both to further the experience and to express it. The 
ones I have suggested are Instruction and Petition; the one 
calculated to fill with a definite content of ideas and moral 
ideals the expanded but empty, imaginative house; the other 
devoted to setting forth common desires and hopes for per- 
sons who now seem more worth saving, and for the preva- 
lence of the forces which now seem the most good. The close 
of this division may well be signalized by whatever kind of 
Confession of Faith may truly represent the realities be- 
lieved and trusted by the people. 

The closing element of the cycle is Dedication. This may 
or may not be expressed in the Offering. There is certainly 
much to be desired in the matter of fixing and pointing pur- 
poses and leading on to decision and consecration in our 
services of worship. The value of the experience is lost if it 
is not successful at this stage. Perhaps someone will write 
new hymns or responsive exercises of enlistment and self- 
offering. On special occasions a common vow recital might 
be asked and registered with great power. Here we see that 
the most complete worship requires the sacrament of Com- 
munion. The offering of self in the sacrament of the Euchar- 
ist is the climax of Christian worship. 

This theory of the order of worship has been the basis of 
our own experiments for more than three years, with very 
modest materials. Its application has resulted in an order 
of service which is a dramatic unity, simple and dignified, 
interesting and smooth. What has been done in our church 
can be done anywhere, and very much more can be accom- 
plished with more artists to help. 

I have nowhere seen another statement of this simple 
principle, except that of Miss Evelyn Underhill, in her vol- 
ume "The Mystic Way." In the chapter called 'The Testi- 
mony of the Liturgy," the author analyzes in detail the func- 
tions of each liturgical part in the canon of the Mass, in the 
light of precisely this theory. "The mass," she writes, "is a 
mystical drama enacting the necessary adventures of the 

• l62- 



The Order of the Liturgy 

soul."* "All the way — from the first turn in the new direc- 
tion — to the final consciousness of world renewal — the 
changing liturgy tracks out the adventures of the soul."f 
The annual program includes many "partial repetitions of 
the pattern career — the attainment of sanctity, the ascent 
to the eternal order and heroic descent in charity to man."f 
"The developed sacramental act presents, in more intimate 
and detailed drama the Mystic Way trodden by each spirit 
in its movement from partial to complete life." || 

Following out this theory, Miss Underhill applies it in 
detail to the different exercises of the Mass, separating for 
this purpose the Mass of the Catechumens from the Mass of 
the Faithful, suggesting that each of these is a complete 
cycle in itself, one a preparation for the other. Of the first 
cycle she says, "On its psychological side it recapitulates 
that sequence of mental states which prepares the movement 
of consciousness toward new levels ; the opening of the eyes 
of the soul, the leading, as it were, of the self to the frontiers 
of the Spiritual World." § Her chapter cannot be exten- 
sively quoted here, nor do I agree with her analysis at vari- 
ous points. But the theory, I believe, is the true one, both 
historically and psychologically. A few sentences will dis- 
play her method. Respecting the very beginning of the 
order, she goes back to an earlier mystic writer: " It is the 
business of the first psalms and hymns of the liturgy,' says 
Dionysius the Areopagite, 'to harmonize the habits of our 
souls to the things which are presently to be ministered, 
establishing an accordance with things divine.' "ff 

When the vision has been seen, there follows swiftly the 
sense of imperfection and sin: "The joy of the discovery of 
Perfection is here balanced by the sadness of the discovery 
of self: the drama of the mystical life process moves to that 
first complete realization of dishannony, of the profound 
need for readjustment, which introduces the soul to the Pur- 

* Underhill, "The Mystic Way," p. 335. 

f Ibid., p. 339- 

X Ibid., p. 340. 

\\Ibid., p. 341- 

§ Ibid., p. 344- 

H Ibid., p. 344- 

.163. 



Art & Religion 

gative Way. . . . The Confitior is the ritual equivalent of 
this backward swing; of the sudden vision of self, perceived 
in the light of reality."* 

As the experience moves forward, so also its expression in 
the liturgy. The Gloria in Excelsis is the "fit image of the 
joyous vision of the universe which is characteristic of the 
illuminated state, the abrupt dilation of consciousness, the 
abrupt reaction from pain-negation to the positive emotions 
of approbation and delight."f In the Scripture readings she 
finds the expression of that desire to publish the good news 
and consecrate the life above suggested as a necessary part 
of the normal experience. 

I have not myself had exactly this feeling, and question 
whether it is associated in the mind of the ordinary wor- 
shiper with the Scripture lessons. Details, however, are un- 
important, as compared to the truth of the principle that the 
mystic experience, and also its expression in the liturgy, 
should include the outgoing desires for the good of the 
world, as well as the enjoyment and adoration of the 
moment. The complete exercise is "a compact image of the 
illuminated life in its wholeness; its attitude of rapt atten- 
tion to, and glad adoration of, the Transcendent Order, its 
perpetual effort to share with others the secret which it has 
received.'^ 

There are undreamed possibilities of noble worship before 
us. Our opportunities and advantages are many. At the 
opera, at the concert, the people are given no share in the 
production. The experience, more or less stifled within itself, 
tends to grow less and less in its most valuable elements, 
and to center itself on the enjoyment of the technical and 
formal merits of the work of art. The church has a chance to 
present its great conceptions in forms of beauty no less en- 
chanting than any others and to enhance the imaginative 
grasp of those conceptions by the vivid processes of their 
popular expression and celebration. I believe that it is not 
only possible for the church to offer higher and better enjoy- 

* Underhill, "The Mystic Way," p. 346. 
t Ibid., p. 346. 
t Ibid., p. 348. 

• 164- 



The Order of the Liturgy 

ments than any of the arts, but also to claim the moral supe- 
riority of its exercise of worship as having a definite intel- 
lectual content and suggesting a definite practical issue. 

Anyone who has attempted to improve an order of wor- 
ship is well aware of many practical problems involved. 
People do not wish to stand up and sit down too many times 
in a service. There must be opportunities for late comers to 
be seated with the least possible intrusion upon the attention 
of all. The order must be easily followed. Strangers and 
visitors do not enjoy the embarrassment of intricate cere- 
monies which can be followed easily only by those familiar 
with them. 

Whatever forms are used, their purposes and functions 
should not be too critically understood by the people. They 
should get the effect without being called upon to notice the 
management that produces it. It is easy for the planners of 
public exercises to produce an artificial effect. This is the 
risk of all analysis and of all painstaking. But the lack of 
analysis and of painstaking has in many churches brought 
about usages which are ugly and unendurable to larger and 
larger numbers of people. 

I am not claiming that the most beautiful order of wor- 
ship can cause everybody to worship. The experience is in- 
effable and awful, mysterious and blessed always. But very 
much can be done to help people to have it. The experience 
may not move concurrently with its expression in the service. 
But I am entirely persuaded that no other suggestion will so 
help us in arranging better exercises of public worship as 
this principle to which details can be referred and by which 
simplicity and unity may be maintained — the parallel ex- 
pression in the order of worship of the most significant 
elements in the experience of worship. 



165 



Chapter XVII : Introit and Antiphons 

THERE is needed a brief further word about the 
usage of an Introit as suggested in the last chapter. 
The logic and function of its place in the service was 
perhaps made sufficiently clear there. It is calculated to do 
what a prologue or first act of a play does. It sets forth the 
theme of the whole service with sufficiently rich material, 
carried by beautiful antiphonal music, to capture attention 
and begin the process of the total presentation of the hour. 

Such an exercise should be confident in spirit and declara- 
tive in manner — a work of art never argues but simply pre- 
sents. In style and diction it should be preferably archaic 
or poetic, though not metrical. In tone of utterance it should 
not be modulated nor weighty, but straightforward and 
clear and even, confidently declarative. 

In form, a tripartite arrangement seems to be a natural 
one, each of the three readings of the minister being fol- 
lowed by the antiphonal response of the choir. A reexamina- 
tion of a considerable number already used discovers a 
marked tendency in the character of the three parts. The 
first reading sets forth some statement of faith or some attri- 
bute of Divinity. The second relates to the corresponding 
human obligation, some statement of the moral implications 
of the divine character previously testified. The third read- 
ing then expresses the hope of triumph for the truth pro- 
claimed or reward for the virtues admonished. 

Materials for these parts should be taken largely from the 
Bible. Some churches will, at least occasionally, be willing 
to have other religious writings drawn upon for such declara- 
tive statements as they regard to be truthfully and beauti- 
fully set forth. One of the best collections of material of this 
character has been made by Mr. Stanton Coit and published 
in the volumes on "Social Worship." 

Good music for responses is hard to find. We use some- 

• 166. 



Introit and Antiphons 

times that which is included in the "Selected Readings" 
published by the A. S. Barnes Company. Most of it is very 
unsatisfactory, although the plan is good. Mr. Clarence 
Dickinson has prepared similar antiphonals for use in the 
Brick Presbyterian Church, New York, which are being pub- 
lished. Our own organist is composing new ones, according 
as we are able to develop the material in harmony with the 
services. Two of these are presented below in this chapter. 
It is hoped that these can sometime be published in form 
suitable for choir usage. 

If any church desires to make use of such an introductory 
number, it should possess, sooner or later, a sufficiently large 
variety of music to cover the main themes of the Christian 
year. Oftentimes the same musical response will serve for 
somewhat different selections for the readings. It is less 
difficult to find readings more fully pertinent to the theme 
of the service. If the words which are sung are reasonably in 
accord, the spoken material will sufficiently carry the burden 
of more precise introduction. 

There is nothing in this general plan to make it impracti- 
cable, even with very modest resources. Even without any 
music at all, there may be an Introit in the service, though it 
consist of nothing more than two or three verses carefully 
selected for their pertinence as a preliminary announcement 
of the theme of the day. It is, at least, far better to have 
such an introduction, fresh for every formal service, than to 
use a familiar stereotyped call to worship. There will always 
be some people who will try to be in their pews on time 
simply to hear what those introductory verses are, knowing 
that they will be fresh and appropriate. Sometimes even a 
single well-selected verse declaring some divine truth will 
secure an interest and be fixed in memory better than a 
longer reading or antiphonal exercise. Such a practice makes 
all the worshipers feel that the service has been well pre- 
pared and tends greatly to increase their expectation of 
getting genuine good from it. 

It will sometimes be found valuable to use an antiphonal 
exercise in the midst of the service rather than as an Introit. 
Particularly is this suggestion applicable to special occa- 

• 167- 



Art & Religion 

sional services or celebrations. The future artist in worship 
will find many opportunities for impressive recitals of this 
character, including responses by two choirs and responses 
between two portions of the congregation, as well as between 
minister and people or minister and singers. 

The exercises here presented were used in the regular 
morning service at the Wellington Avenue Congregational 
Church in Chicago. The music was written by the regular 
choir director, Mr. Leo Sowerby. The first was prepared for 
the service at which the sermon topic was "The Son of 
God," the second was introductory to a sermon on "The 
Communion of Work." 



INTROIT ON CREATIVE SONSHIP 

Minister: 

Thus saith the Lord : 

I am the Lord, and there is none else; beside me there is 

no God. 
I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me : 
That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from 

the west, that there is none beside me : 
I am the Lord, and there is none else. 
I form the light, and create darkness; 
I make peace and create evil ; 
I am the Lord, that doeth all these things. 

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Introit and Antiphons 



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As many as are led bv the Spirit of God, these are the sons 

of God. 
For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear ; 

but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we 

cry, Abba, Father. 
For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for 

the revealing of the sons of God. 
For the creation was subjected to vanity ... in hope that 

the creation itself also shall be delivered from the 

bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory 

of the children of God. 



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Minister: 

And I saw the heaven opened: and behold, a white horse 
and he that sat thereon, called Faithful and True : 

And his eyes are a flame of fire and upon his head are 
many diadems: 

And his name is called the Word of God. 

• 169- 



Art & Religion 

And the armies which are in heaven followed him upon 

white horses. 
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet 

appear what we shall be : 
But we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like 

him : for we shall see him as he is. 



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INTROIT ON THE FELLOWSHIPS OF WORK 

Minister: 

Come and see the works of God. 
His work is honorable and glorious. 

• 170- 



Introit and Antiphons 

He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered: 
the Lord is gracious and full of compassion. 

The works of his hands are verity and judgment: 

O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and 
for his wonderful works to the children of men ! 

And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and 
declare his works with rejoicing. 



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God is no respecter of persons : 

But in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh 

righteousness is accepted with him. 
For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do 

of his good pleasure. 
Faith, if it hath not works is dead, being alone. 
Surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with 

my God. 

•171. 



Art & Religion 



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When the Son of man shall come in his glory and all the 

holy angels with him, . . . 
Before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall 

separate them one from another . . . and say unto 

them on his right hand, 
Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom pre- 
pared for you from the foundation of the world : 
For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat : 

I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: 

I was a stranger, and ye took me in : 

Naked, and ye clothed me : 

I was sick, and ye visited me : 

I was in prison, and ye came unto me. 
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these 

my brethren, ye have done it unto me. 



172 



Introit and Antiphons 



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173- 



Chapter XVIII: Music 

MUSIC is the most universal and possibly the high- 
est of the fine arts. It is the most formal and the 
least representative of all. It is the only one 
which appeals to the ear, all the others being addressed to 
the eye. Although some music approximates other arts in 
definiteness of ideas, the most of it is representative of 
moods and feelings rather than of concepts. It is pure 
beauty, of harmony, of melody, of rhythm, like a tree, a 
vase, a flower, or the movements of the dance. 

Just as all peoples have loved music, so to the religionist, 
music is the most commonty acceptable art. Churches which 
are prejudiced against painting and sculpture and which 
have, seemingly, little appreciation of the importance of 
beautiful architecture, insist upon having good music. There 
is no need for argument by way of persuading even Protest- 
ants to utilize the art of music. There is much need of many 
very definite improvements in the ordinary use of music 
among us. Forgoing the desire to discuss the general aesthet- 
ics of the subject, I am confining these remarks to a few. 
very practical matters. 

First of all, the music of a church service should contrib- 
ute to its unity. Often it does not do this. The words of the 
anthems, usually, and frequently the words of the hymns, 
have little or no connection with the general theme of the 
service. That this is difficult to avoid is no excuse for it. 
Although our hymn books are not sufficiently rich in express- 
ing many modern religious sentiments, the best hymnals 
will yield numbers which will reasonably accord with most 
of the subject matter desired. It is unexceptionably worth 
while for ministers to take pains in the choice of hymns. 

Far more difficult is the question of the anthem. Not only 
is the range of ideas in anthem literature more limited, but 
it is harder to prearrange the sermon and service themes 

• 174- 



Music 

sufficiently early to enable the choir preparation to be per- 
tinent. Nevertheless, especially in the larger churches, the 
attempt should be made to fit the anthem as accurately as 
possible into the definite unity of the day. 

As already suggested in a previous chapter, some general 
church year system of themes may be made the basis of the 
usual preparation. Even if not always followed, such a sys- 
tem tends to increase the number of services in which a suc- 
cessful unity can be developed. Our usual Protestant usage 
accomplishes this for the more notable seasons, such as 
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. It can be extended by 
adding seasonal themes in Advent, Lent, Whitsuntide, and 
other seasons. 

Where it is difficult, on particular occasions, to find suit- 
able words for the musical parts of the service, anthems may 
be omitted entirely in favor of organ music. This is a very 
impressive usage in any case. There is an abundant musical 
literature for such purposes. An organ number in the midst 
of the service may sometimes be far superior to an anthem. 
It may be made just as interesting, and has some distinct 
advantages. Having a less definite mental suggestion than 
the anthem, it calls more richly upon the imagination of the 
worshiper. If the theme of the service has already been 
clearly presented, that theme the more easily becomes the 
imaginative content of the musical presentation. Especially 
nowadays, when people expect so much to be done for them, 
it is valuable to have them drawn into this kind of share 
in the good of the service. Also, in this day of nervous move- 
ment, it is valuable to have in the service such moments of 
quietness as are effected by a purely musical number. 

Not every organist is skilful in the selection of his num- 
bers with respect to the service unity. He should not use 
martial music when the theme of the service is quiet and 
devotional, nor contrariwise. At every possible point all the 
music of every service should be made conformable to the 
prearranged theme of the hour. 

The next most important manner of regarding music in 
public worship is its worth as the general matrix of the 
service. It should be used not only for its own sake, at espe- 

• 175. 



Art & Religion 

daily assigned places, but all the way through to bind the 
parts together. It should fill the chinks and make the transi- 
tions. It is the underlying warp upon which the pictures of 
the woof are woven. If minister and organist understand 
each other and work together, many rough places may be 
smoothed by a little musical transition. Not only such items 
as prayer responses, but also short bits of playing while 
stragglers are being seated or while people are changing their 
postures, or where the impression of one portion of the 
service needs for a further moment to be continued or 
slightly altered before another begins. As an instance of 
the last point, in our service the organist takes up the emo- 
tional level of the close of the Scripture lesson and plays 
a little climacteric interlude sweeping up into the Doxology. 
It does not take long and greatly assists the people to the 
feeling of praise they are about to express. 

There cannot, of course, be good music in the church 
unless there are people properly fitted to produce it. The 
conduct of the church choir is often a vexed and difficult 
question. It is well to begin with a high regard for its work. 
The possibilities of the influence of noble music are so great 
that it is hard to overestimate the importance of a successful 
choir. If any chorister should chance to read this chapter, let 
him be assured of the dignity and worth of his contribution 
to the service of God; let him understand, also, that it is 
more important for him to have a truly religious spirit and 
reverent bearing, and to be unexceptionably faithful in 
attendance, than that he should be possessed of extraordi- 
nary talent. 

A so-called chorus choir, even a small one, is far better 
than a quartet. The quartet may produce superior music; 
it is usually inferior in devotional feeling. The chorus is less 
professional and more worshipful, both in appearance and 
style of singing. Altogether too much church music, espe- 
cially as produced by the quartet, somehow has the aspect of 
concert numbers. Music in the service should rather give 
the impression of an indispensable and closely woven part 
of the service as a whole. No music in a service of worship 
should ever impress one as a program number. 

• 176- 



Music 

Sometimes, where it is hard to maintain a purely volun- 
teer choir, and too expensive to pay many singers, a paid 
soloist may be engaged as a voice teacher for the chorus. All 
the members then receive as a kind of payment or spur to 
their interest valuable instruction which at the same time 
improves the choir. A children's choir is often possible of 
development as an adjunct to the work of the regular chorus. 

In any case, it is vital to the service of worship that the 
work of the choir be considered not merely from the point of 
view of artistic singing, but also from the point of view 
of its appearance, and with regard to an effect of simplicity 
and reality as compared with professionalism. The chorus 
choir is far superior at both these points. It makes possible 
a processional movement of singers and at the same time a 
less conspicuous impression. The children's choir, also, 
though their musical rendition be extremely modest, may be 
made beautiful to look upon and so a great addition to the 
sweetness and joy of the service. 

In line with the importance of the worshipful character 
of the music, there should be a greater development of 
responses and antiphonals. The ambitious and elaborate 
anthem has its place in the music of the church, but it is 
greatly overestimated. It is often top-heavy with respect to 
the rest of the service. It is often "lugged in." Frequently 
it stands apart, valuable in itself, but not intimately con- 
nected with the total psychology of the hour. Brief responses, 
on the other hand, may serve a definite psychological func- 
tion when properly placed. 

Some churches have developed short antiphonal exercises 
between people and minister and choir, composed of read- 
ing and musical responses. Such exercises are especially 
valuable for occasional services. They may be made very 
impressive at the opening of the service, as has been sug- 
gested. Such usages leave no doubt as to the character of the 
music. It is obviously worshipful and not merely artistic. It 
is far removed from the impression of concert program 
character. In the performance of such exercises, the singers 
do not appear to be professional artists, but genuine servers 
in the House of God. There is not a large musical literature 

.177. 



Art & Religion 

to be drawn upon for such antiphonal singing. It is to be 
hoped that composers will develop work of this character. 
It will undoubtedly be more largely called for in the early 
future. 

The use of music for special occasions of the church year 
is often very successfully developed. There is an abundant 
store of good music for such uses. Yet here, also, there is 
large opportunity for further development. The future 
church, especially the cathedral-like city organization, 
ought to make provision for an organist who is also an able 
composer. The leaders of the worship of such a church will 
wish occasionally to arrange services to celebrate great 
events or set forth in a new way great themes of the Chris- 
tian career. They ought to have a musician capable of pro- 
viding the fresh compositions necessary for such occasions. 

Sometimes even a modest and brief composition that is 
new in form and content is extremely effective. For example, 
in our own church, on last Palm Sunday, the organist pre- 
pared music for the words of the Palm Sunday story. The 
account was presented at the vesper service. It began with 
the bright morning appeal of the Day of Palms, brilliantly 
sung by a solo voice. Then followed a reading by the minis- 
ter setting forth a reconstructed story of the day, recounting 
the failure of the leaders and the people of Jerusalem to 
accept the appeal, this reading being accompanied by organ 
playing. After a transitional paragraph, the keynote of the 
first bright passage was resumed and the words of praise by 
the throng sung, to express, as it were, the final judgment of 
history on the events. This was not an elaborate production, 
but it was pertinent, beautiful, and spiritually suggestive. 
It illustrated quite precisely the kind of thing that should be 
attempted much more frequently as there is developed 
amongst us a growing sense of the possibilities of noble and 
beautiful music in the worship of the church. 

Some churches, especially those located on the crowded 
thoroughfares, realize the value of organ playing at fixed 
hours on week days. If people know that they may step into 
the church for rest and meditation at noontime or in the 

• i 7 8- 



Music 

late afternoon, and at the same time find good music, many 
will be drawn to make avail of it. 

Two very simple matters need attention, perhaps more 
than these difficult aspects of the subject. Choirs should be 
trained to sing their words clearly, and always to give care- 
ful attention to the hymns. Because things seem small, they 
are the more neglected. Many organists play difficult works 
better than they play hymns. And the value of much music 
is lost because the words are unintelligible. As in other arts, 
it is the little things that count. We are often too ambitious 
musically. It is far better to have simple, plain music, sin- 
cerely and successfully rendered all the way through, than 
to have occasional brilliant productions in the midst of 
slovenly and irreverent work in general. 



179 



Chapter XIX : Architectural Style 

EVERYONE who has to do with the planning of a 
church building should have some acquaintance with 
the principal historic styles in architecture, together 
with some general impression of the spiritual meaning of 
each. Two very special facts about the artistic situation of 
the present day make these particularly important at this 
time. The first is that we are in the midst of a period of 
style revivals more marked and more heterogeneous than at 
any previous time. The second is that there is a battle of 
wits on amongst the architects themselves concerning this 
very matter of style revival. 

Great architecture requires originality or genius, as does 
any other great production. It also requires scholarship. It is 
just as unfortunate for architects to be planning buildings 
that are not scholarly as it is for men to lecture upon phi- 
losophy without knowing Plato, Plotinus, Descartes and the 
other great contributors to the stream of philosophic learn- 
ing. It is just as valuable for the architect to know how the 
Greeks built and why, and how the monks built and why, 
as for the preacher to be familiar with Isaiah and Paul and 
Luther. There is much scholarly building going on these 
days, and also much extremely ignorant building. Many 
unfortunate buildings are constructed because committees, 
as well as artists, are ignorant. It would be worth while for 
the members of every building committee to make a brief 
historic excursion before selecting the style of their struc- 
ture. These paragraphs are intended as an extremely simple 
introduction to such an excursion. 

GREEK 

They would wish to go first to Greece. There they would 
find remains of the great prototypes of thousands of build- 
ings in the western world. On the Acropolis in Athens alone 

• i8o- 



Architectural Style 

they could see enough to give them some sense of the glorious 
life that produced the fragments which still remain there, 
and some vague comprehension of the great qualities in these 
constructions which have again and again drawn back to 
them the artistic imagination of the race. 

There is a curious paradox just here. Some likeness to 
something in the Parthenon may be discovered in many 
structures in many countries over centuries of time, yet the 
Parthenon is a finished product, complete and perfect, with 
no possibilities of further development in its own mode. A 
rectangular building, of simple post and lintel system and of 
absolute symmetry, quickly comes to the limit of develop- 
ment in its own line. No structure of this kind in the world 
is so satisfying as this Parthenon, with its seventeen columns 
upon each side and eight at each end ; every question of scale 
and proportion nobly disposed; the opposing elements of 
weight and upbearing force exactly balanced; every line of 
force and every stress of weight beautifully expressed in the 
structure; lavish of decorative detail, yet ample of broad 
light and shade; amazingly fine in niceties of construction, 
especially as involved by the curvatures of stylobate and 
columns: a complete, elegant, commanding house of wor- 
ship. 

This building is the symbol of the very essence of Greek 
life and genius. We cannot understand it without under- 
standing that life, and yet, from it alone, we might almost 
reconstruct that life. Many things are to be read from the 
structure itself. Without yielding to the temptation to 
analyze them, perhaps the most important thing to say is 
that the building typifies in its very nature the intellectual 
mastery and the spiritual poise achieved, though it were for 
but a brief moment in the history of human life, by the great 
race whose genius flowered so wonderfully in the fifth cen- 
tury B.C. It is no derogation to them to say that they 
remained untroubled by many of the problems which inter- 
est us. We could not express our lives in a building anything 
like the Parthenon. We have not reached any such mastery 
or unity of life. We are troubled by the enslavement 
the world as the builders on the Acropolis were not. 

• 181 - 



Art & Religion 

All the writers agree in a general way in the interpretation 
and meaning of the Greek style. Coventry Patmore calls it 
a rational style, "weight of material force mastered by the 
mind." Irving K. Pond calls it an intellectual style, "final 
poise and repose," by its horizontal lines intimating restraint 
and restfulness. Henry Osborn Taylor describes it as ex- 
pressing these elements — limit, proportion, order, finitude, 
perfection, simplicity, unity, intellectualism, poise. Lyle 
March Phillipps emphasizes its tranquillity and lucidity. 
He says that one "puzzled by the obscure in life, baffled by 
the nothings that crowd his days will find a restorative in 
Doric architecture, as though the great temple should speak 
— 'Resist the importunities of the passing hours ; he who has 
diverted man's purpose by the fugitive impulses will accom- 
plish nothing; proportion your ends to your means and 
instead of frittering away energy in a thousand caprices, 
direct it to the proportions of some worthy design.' "* 

I do not myself feel satisfied with these phrases. Nor is it 
fair to quote them as the complete word of these critics. 
If the Greek temper was poised, it was not a quiet poise : if 
it was intellectual, it was not unemotional or inactive. The 
calm of the Parthenon is not the oriental calm, but rather 
the self-possession which includes both enthusiasm and 
energy. Its godlike stateliness is not that of indifference and 
aloofness, but rather of comprehensiveness. Moreover, the 
Greeks built other buildings more common and human; on 
this same Acropolis, the Propyl aea, the temple of Nike 
Apteros, and the Erectheum. We are so accustomed to think- 
ing of Greek architecture in its practical and definitive, 
luxurious, Romanized modifications that we do not give 
sufficient credit for the mysticism that is in it. If for a brief 
time the Greeks seem to have reached an intellectual repose, 
for a brief time also, in the age after that of Pericles, they 
appear to have been stirred by fresh uncertainties, until the 
Hellenic life of the spirit was more or less quenched by the 
Macedonian ambitions and the Roman administration. The 
Greek mysteries, the Greek nature poetry, and the Greek 
sculpture in the post-Phidian age all represent a more Ro- 

* Phillipps, "Art and Environment," p. 120. 

• 182- 



Architectural Style 

mantic and searching spirit than is displayed in the clear-cut 
and definitive Roman world. Yet chiefly the intimations of 
the purest Greek work are intellectual. 

ROMAN 

Roman architecture seems at first sight to be merely 
Greek, more elaborated and larger in scale. In reality, how- 
ever, not only did the Romans apply Greek methods of 
structure and Greek motives of decoration in a greater 
variety of ways, but they created a new architecture by the 
use of the arch. The round arch enabled the Romans to 
vault wide spaces in their great baths and basilicas and 
to carry heavy loads as in aqueducts and amphitheaters. It 
also enabled them to beautify facades and develop arcades 
of great charm in both public and private structures. 

The Christian churches began to build in the national and 
prevailing style. Although very different in some aspects to 
the civil buildings of the same name, the early Christian 
church was called a basilica, an oblong building with an 
interior colonnade on each side; with a high roof over the 
middle portion so that light and air might come from win- 
dows in the clerestory walls above the rows of columns; and 
with a half circle wall at the end of the nave inclosing the 
apse or sanctuary. Some of the very ancient basilicas still 
remain in very nearly the original form, and with most of 
the original materials. In Rome, St. Paul's Without the Walls 
is perhaps the most distinguished and representative of all. 
It was originally built in 386, once restored by Valentinian 
and again in modern times. Santa Maria Maggiore was 
built in 432, and although it has a Renaissance ceiling, it 
retains its original appearance. Buildings in this Roman style 
were constructed for Christian churches until the Gothic 
Age, San Clemente in Rome having been built in 1108. 
Two great buildings at Ravenna, San Appollinare in Classe 
and San Appollinare Nuovo, constructed under Byzantine 
influence and containing notable Eastern mosaics, are none 
the less basilican in form. Many basilicas were built in Syria, 
some of them remaining in ruins, others as the one in Beth- 
lehem still in use. These buildings are not only stately in 

.183- 



Art & Religion 

their proportions but they form an excellent audience room 
for hearing the preacher, and an excellent composition, by 
their length, for drawing attention to the altar or the com- 
munion table and to the symbolic decorations in the apse. 

All Roman architecture seems to be touched with the 
spirit of practical competence and administrative ability. 
Probably the modern American business man would find 
himself more at home and at ease in the society of Romans 
than he would in the company of Greeks or of mediaevals. 
Possibly the American woman would discover a genuine 
kinship with the Roman matron in personal and domestic 
life, in virtues and in ideals. Yet the Roman had power and 
wealth and intelligence by which he could command a cul- 
ture and a sensitiveness which he did not of himself quite 
possess. All this is accurately represented in his buildings, 
the structures of an eminently practical race. 

BYZANTINE 

After the division of the Roman Empire, the Greek city 
of Byzantium, later known as the city of Constantine, be- 
came the center of governmental vitality and so also a 
dominating influence in building. Byzantine architecture is 
an admixture of oriental and Hellenic ideals. Its greatest 
achievements were accomplished by the builders of Jus- 
tinian, in a structure which some have regarded as "the 
noblest church Christians have ever built," Haggia Sophia 
in Constantinople, begun in 532 A. D. The building rests 
upon four great piers or towers forming a square of about 
a hundred feet on each side. From pier to pier are flung great 
arches. Upon the arches, spanning the wide nave and sup- 
ported by huge curved triangular walls or pendentives, is 
the great dome, one hundred and eighty feet high. The side 
arches, above a two-storied colonnade of great beauty, are 
walled. The other opposite arches are open to receive the 
vaulting of two semi-domes at either end of the structure. 
The whole amazing space is clear to the eye as one steps 
through the inner portals of the narthex. The interior is 
splendid in the display of rich parti-colored marbles, and 
originally possessed extensive mosaics. Other Byzantine 

.184. 



Architectural Style 

buildings which the traveler may have opportunity of seeing 
are San Vitale, Ravenna; the Church of the Apostles, Salon- 
ica; St. Mark's, Venice; the Church of the Chora, and St. 
Irene, Constantinople. St. Front in Perigueux, France, has 
a Byzantine dome and the church which Charlemagne built 
at Aix-la-Chapelle is an octagon, like the works in Ravenna 
or their prototypes in Syria. The brilliant color of Byzan- 
tine decoration is on the walls and not in the windows as in 
Gothic buildings. The best-preserved of these structures are 
characterized by an oriental and almost barbaric splendor 
that suggests an exuberance of vitality in the life which 
produced them. Their structural triumph still makes us 
realize the intellectual genius of the Greek builders who 
designed them. "It is the clearness of the art of Greece 
itself. 5 '* Their wide spaces and comprehending domes dispel 
any inclination to narrowness or provincialism in the be- 
holder. 

ROMANESQUE 

After the barbarian invasions had destroyed the imperial 
power in the West and broken down the civil unity, the 
power of the church remained, and great churches were still 
built. But the Dark Age, roughly 500 to 1000, was in gen- 
eral a nondescript period. The builders of churches no longer 
had such fine artists or competent workmen to depend upon, 
nor could they find so many old pillars and capitals from 
earlier structures to use in their new ones. They began, there- 
fore, to use heavy square piers instead of pillars, and archi- 
volts instead of architraves between the piers. Some of the 
basilicas had used the archivolt but could not develop it 
because of the inadequate support of pillars. The cathedral 
at Torcello is a ruder church than the older basilicas, but its 
arches are wider. San Pietro at Toscanella, 740, still pre- 
dominantly Roman and basilican in plan, has round arches. 
the greater spread of which is the presage of change. When, 
however, arches were used over the nave and then a cross 
vault added, as at St. Ambrose in Milan, tenth century, we 
have a building that stands not at the end of an old pn 
but at the beginning of a new. 

* Lowrie, "Monuments of the Early Church," p. 158. 

• 185- 



Art & Religion 

In Lombardy and in Tuscany are to be seen many 
churches which may be called Romanesque because founded 
upon the basilican idea, yet modified profoundly by the 
increasing use of the arch. Many of these are augmented by 
campaniles, lofty, free-standing square bell towers, some of 
them of great beauty. In this modified Roman style were 
constructed also, north of the Alps, many monastic churches. 
In Germany are many notable buildings in the later Roman- 
esque period, such as the Church of the Holy Apostles, 
Cologne, the cathedrals of Speyer, Mainz, Trier, and others. 
In Southern France, particularly in Auvergne and Poitou, 
are many notable Romanesque churches. Many people are 
familiar with the beautiful doorway of St. Trophime at 
Aries. Concerning the style typical of this period Professor 
Maurice de Wulf spoke recently at the Lowell Institute. 
"It was a form, or a collection of forms, which were quite 
new, in which the rational and logical character of the 
church and its functions shines forth with great clearness. 
For the first time were seen two towers serving as the frame 
for the fagade, large doorways, choirs with their surround- 
ing ambulatories and radiating chapels, high walls orna- 
mented within, a cruciform ground plan, and above all, a 
barrel vault in stone, instead of wooden vaults for ceil- 
ings."* 

In the hands of the Normans the same mode of structure 
was rapidly developed in the energetic days of early medi- 
aevalism with brilliant results. The length of structure was 
increased and the height. Such buildings as the church at 
Jumieges and the Abbaye aux Hommes at Caen, Norman 
buildings with high vaults and clerestories, might be called 
early Gothic by some, so far has the process developed from 
the earliest movement of change. In England, Ifrley Church, 
for a small building, and Durham Cathedral, for a great 
structure, are well-known Norman churches. 

For the most part, in Romanesque and Norman construc- 
tion, the arch is still a weight-carrying rather than a bal- 
anced member. In general, also, the wall of the building, 
rather than its pillars and arches, is emphasized. Sobriety 

* Quoted from the American Architect, April 7, 1920. 

• 186- 



Architectural Style 

and simplicity and strength are intimated by the plain and 
solid masses and wall stability of these buildings. They have 
left behind the finish and authority and surface polish of the 
Roman world; they have not yet achieved the daring and 
logic and brilliance of the Gothic Age. There is a sense of 
masculine dependability about them that is protective and 
noble. They are not the structures of an effeminate or ele- 
gant age. Whether ponderous, as in some cases, or high and 
light, as at the close of their period, they are all suggestive 
of a well-composed power to endure, a sturdy virtue and 
good will, not reflective or clear of mind, but stout of heart 
and strong. 

GOTHIC 

Probably the average uninstructed notion of a Gothic 
church is of a building having windows with pointed arches. 
Nothing could be more inadequate or, for that matter, far- 
ther from the truth. To say just what does constitute a 
Gothic structure, however, is not so easy. Certainly the late 
Norman buildings with round-arched windows and vaults 
are more nearly Gothic than many modern so-called Gothic 
churches, which are nothing but hall auditoriums, though 
the windows be narrow and pointed. The astonishing abbeys 
and cathedrals of the high Gothic age came both swiftly and 
directly from the Norman buildings of Northern France 
and England after the Conquest. The transition was effected, 
most of all, by the construction of rib vaulting. This at once 
lessened the amount of masonry required to vault the aisles, 
and also the quantity required for the walls, by concentrat- 
ing the load upon the piers. The solid stonework was still 
further reduced in the buttresses, as it was found that an 
exterior half arch or flying buttress would carry the outward 
thrust as safely as a right-angled wall. These devices, 
together with the pointed arch and sexpartite vaulting, also 
enabled the builder to carry the structure to greater heights. 
The result at last was a building in which the walls all but 
disappeared in favor of pillars or clustered piers and 
windows. 

At last, also, the buildings left far behind the broad and 

•187- 



Art & Religion 

horizontal forms of the classic world : they became long and 
high, the vertical lines dominant. Almost every important 
city in Europe can show a mediaeval Gothic building, and 
almost everyone with any acquaintance in architecture at all, 
knows the names of some of the most celebrated of early or 
late Gothic cathedrals. 

As in all architecture, the building itself tells its own 
story of its own age. The Gothic structure is instinct with 
energy and aspiration and unrestrained emotion ; it is active 
and unsleeping and unlimited. As the weight of the Greek 
entablature is carried by the columns gracefully and easily, 
in a Gothic building it is "totally vanquished, borne above 
as by a superior spiritual power.' 5 * The arch is not so much 
a carrier of dead weight as an active member of a logical 
fabric nicely balanced by an equilibrium of forces. How 
these incomparable works of art were raised by the com- 
munalism, the rising nationalism, and the piety of the great 
period which produced them is a great historic study. The 
story of the Cistercian monks alone would throw needed 
light upon many matters artistic, social, and religious dur- 
ing that energetic age. Students of the history of religion 
or of art may be well assured of the benefits to be derived 
by delving deep into the surging tides of life and feeling, 
strong enough to have set so high a mark in the artistic 
annals of the race. 

Modern would-be builders might find it profitable to 
engage in another kind of imaginative effort. I could almost 
recommend that a church building committee secure a great 
quantity of wooden blocks and go down upon the floor and 
try to build a church in order to get ever so faintly some- 
thing of the feel and thrill of composing a true structure, 
and some far-off sense of the builder's fierce joy in the 
mastery of his problem. Anything we can do to give us a 
dramatic entrance into the spirit of the builders would be 
beneficial to the art of building among us. A very short 
experience with our blocks upon the floor would soon show 
us that it is comparatively easy to build a basilica with 
architraves. And it would soon convince us, also, how far we 

* Patmore, "Principle in Art," p. 201. 

• 188- 



Architectural Style 

should have to go before we could produce anything like a 
Gothic structure. 

The intimations of Gothic building, then, are not chiefly 
intellectual, though its structural character is logical above 
all others; nor chiefly practical, though its structural princi- 
ple is active and never passive; but emotional and mystical. 
The long and narrow spaces do not spread out to compre- 
hend a many-sided experience, but point the attention, with 
a singleness of concentration, upon the highest experience: 
the high vaulted aisles do not rest assuredly upon the finite 
and the known, but lead the imagination to find some com- 
munion with the infinite unknown. 

THE RENAISSANCE 

In the fifteenth century another great change began to 
pass upon all the western world, that combined revival of 
classic learning and of timeless humanism which we call the 
Renaissance. Beginning in Italy, it spread to the north and, 
architecturally speaking, came to America at the time when 
the most notable churches of the colonial days were built. 

Without presuming even to suggest the complex feelings 
and movements of the age, it is for our purposes sufficient to 
recall two or three of its most significant notes. It was a 
revival of interest in the classic grandeur and the classic 
learning both of Rome and of Greece. Perhaps more pro- 
foundly, it was a fresh interest in nature and in man, a 
reassertion of individualism and humanism as over against 
the authority and austerity of the mediaeval church. Mr. 
Symonds calls it the emancipation of reason; Mr. Phillipps, 
the natural succession of an age of thought after an age of 
action, an intellectual civilization with naturalism and 
realism in the arts. Professor Frothingham says that archi- 
tecturally the meaning of the Renaissance is "the revival of 
the classic orders, and of the Roman decorative system, 
combined with Roman and Byzantine forms of vaulting, 
under the influence of an artistic sense less constructive than 
it was decorative and with a degree of free interpretation 
that often degenerated into license."* Professor Hamlin 

* Sturgis and Frothingham, "A History of Architecture," vol. 4, p. 106. 

• 189- 



Art & Religion 

says that "the Italians of those days, dissatisfied with the 
foreign and Gothic manner which they had for more than a 
century been seeking to assimilate, longed for the stateliness 
and dignity, the largeness of scale, the breadth and repose 
of effect which they now recognized and admired in even the 
ruins of the Roman monuments."* Mr. Thomas Hastings 
writes that "the forms of architecture which had prevailed 
for a thousand years were inadequate to the needs of the new 
civilization, to its demands for greater refinement of 
thought, for larger truth to nature, for less mystery in form 
of expression, and for greater convenience in practical 
living."f 

The first great architect of the Renaissance was Brunel- 
leschi, who completed the great dome of the cathedral in 
Florence in 1436, who built San Lorenzo, and Santo Spirito, 
the Pitti Palace, the Hospital of the Innocents, and other 
works. His low, round arcades upon single columns were 
delightful and much copied. The name of Bramante stands 
for the higher Renaissance, with its revival of pier and 
pilaster construction characteristic of ancient Roman build- 
ings. Many palaces and churches in Italy were built in this 
splendid age, about 1490 to 1550, including St. Peter's 
Cathedral. After this came baroque and decline, although 
contemporaneous with the beautiful and influential work of 
Palladio. 

North of the Alps the classic revival became one of the 
influences in the rapid development of the Reformation, 
particularly through the learning of such Humanists as 
Erasmus and Zwingli. The architectural effects were not so 
prevalent. Castles in Germany, chateaux in France, and 
manor houses of Jacobean England are all variant forms of 
Renaissance influence. The churches of St. Sulpice and the 
Hotel des Invalides in Paris are differing forms of French 
Renaissance, and the palaces at Versailles, a later form. The 
movement in England began with Inigo Jones, its greatest 
works being those of Sir Christopher Wren, who completed 
St. Paul's Cathedral in 1710. Wren's London parish 

*A. D. F. Hamlin in the Architectural Record, July, 1919, p. 62. 
f Hastings, "Modern Architecture," p. 6. 

• 190- 



Architectural Style 

churches, with their slender spires, especially St. Bride's, 
Fleet Street, and St. Mary le Bow are the direct prototypes 
of our early American houses of worship, such as Park Street, 
Boston, and the North Church in New Haven. 

The intimations of the Renaissance mode of building are, 
like the movement itself, complex and therefore varied. At 
their worst, they suggest secularity, triviality, vulgarity, 
superfine elegance — though for that matter the decline of 
any artistic movement reveals these same things. At their 
best, they seem to convey something of the dignity of Roman 
Stoicism, and as carried out in a few of the finest wooden 
Colonial meetinghouses, a lucidity that is almost Greek, 
together with a Gothic aspiration in the spires. At the aver- 
age they are secular and administrative. 

STYLE REVIVALS 

In planning a new church, shall we use one of the historic 
styles, and if so which one, or try to find something new? 
In the first place, it is most important to be aware of what 
we are actually doing in the matter in America just now. We 
are passing through a period characterized by a fresh interest 
in all these historic styles and a revival of them all. Every- 
one is perfectly familiar with the facts of this revival in 
domestic architecture and in house furniture. In the late 
nineteenth century we were producing about as bad an out- 
put in furniture as possible. It is only within the last fifteen 
or twenty years that Grand Rapids and other furniture head- 
quarters have been turning out "period styles." Precisely the 
same thing has occurred in church architecture. On the one 
hand, there is a fresh usage of the Gothic tradition, gen- 
uinely informed with a real Gothic spirit. On the other 
hand, there have been many buildings whose mode traces 
back to the classic tradition at some point or other, Roman 
Basil ican, Romanesque, Renaissance, or Colonial. 

Few people are aware of the magnitude and excellence of 
the new Gothic churches recently constructed in America. By 
far the most notable works in this movement, both as to 
character and quantity, are those of Mr. Ralph Adams Cram 
and Mr. Bertram Goodhue. Amongst the most important of 

.191. 



Art & Religion 

these churches are the Episcopal Cathedral, Detroit; St. 
Thomas's, New York; Calvary, Pittsburgh; The Euclid 
Avenue Presbyterian, Cleveland; The House of Hope, 
Presbyterian, St. Paul; the First Baptist, Pittsburgh; the 
First Presbyterian, Oakland, California; the Military 
Chapel at West Point ; the South Reformed, New York ; the 
First Congregational, Montclair, New Jersey; the Chapel 
of the Intercession, New York. These works vary somewhat 
in method and in feeling according as to which artist dom- 
inated in their design and decoration and according to the 
requirements of the parishes themselves. But they are with- 
out exception distinguished buildings, which taken together 
constitute an architectural influence that is likely to persist 
in American life for generations. To see any one of them is 
to be immediately aware of the paucity of noble architec- 
ture over the country generally, and to be stirred with the 
undreamed of possibilities before us as a rich nation begin- 
ning to be capable of expressing itself in the noblest forms 
for the highest enjoyments of the spiritual life. 

The contributions of Mr. Henry Vaughan to this Gothic 
movement in the buildings of Christ Church, New Haven, 
the Chapel of Groton School, the Chapel of Western Re- 
serve University, Cleveland, and others, are no less signifi- 
cant in their character. Allen & Collens have built the 
chapels of Union Theological Seminary, Williams College, 
and Andover Theological Seminary; the Congregational 
Church, West Newton, Massachusetts ; and the Skinner Me- 
morial Chapel, Holyoke, Massachusetts — all interesting 
and excellent examples of the Gothic revival. A structure 
which will draw visitors is that now slowly rising at Bryn 
Athyn, Pennsylvania, lovingly built by the Swedenborgian 
community there. On a larger scale than any of these are 
cathedrals designed for New York, Baltimore, and Wash- 
ington. 

Stirred by this movement, many other churches have set 
out to build in the Gothic style, some of the small buildings 
having great charm. Others have not come very near the 
Gothic spirit. Many possess excellent detail of tracery or 
other decoration, but are too wide or low in their proportions 

• 192- 




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to claim as much kinship with the Gothic mode as they 
seem to have desired in the choice of details. 

On the whole, considering the less successful as well as the 
fewer and more brilliant examples, the total number of 
new buildings of the twentieth' century expressing this 
Gothic revival is very considerable, spread over the whole 
country and throughout differing religious bodies. 

Toward other traditions, also, there is a decided tendency. 
The Roman Catholic Church is just now using almost exclu- 
sively basilican or Romanesque forms. Some of these build- 
ings are in the earlier Roman style, as St. Gregory's, Brook- 
lyn, and St. Mary's of the Lake, Chicago. Others are of the 
later Lombard or Tuscan inspiration, as St. Agnes' s, Cleve- 
land, and St. Catherine's, Somerville, Massachusetts. 

Other classic work throughout the country is extremely 
varied. The beautiful Congregational Church of Riverside, 
California, in a region where there are still remains of 
Renaissance Spanish work, is appropriately Spanish in 
design. The Presbyterian Church of St. Joseph, Missouri, 
has built one of the most successful Colonial buildings re- 
cently attempted, designed by Messrs. Eckel & Boschen. 
It escapes a very common fault of many Colonial revivals, 
that of too great size and heaviness in all the details, such as 
frames, jambs, entablatures, and cornices. It possesses some- 
thing of the refinement and excellence of proportion in the 
early New England buildings. The Byzantine strain has not 
been much attempted in this country. The most notable 
modern Byzantine building in the world is Westminster 
Cathedral, London. The new St. Clement's in Chicago is a 
more modest Byzantine structure. 

A distinguished building which, as judged by its spire and 
parish house, one would call Colonial, is Second Parish 
Church of Boston, designed by Mr. Cram. The church itself, 
however, connects farther back. Unlike any Colonial Ameri- 
can building, and unlike the typical English Renaissance 
church, it has a clerestory, greatly elevating the nave. The 
character of the interior colonnades, barrel-vaulted aisles 
and coffered nave ceiling, is reminiscent of San Lorenzo, an 
early Renaissance church in Florence. Although there are 

.195. 



Art & Religion 

many other excellent structures, perhaps these mentioned are 
sufficient to establish the fact that present-day architects 
are finding valuable suggestions in widely differing periods 
of the historic development of the Graeco-Roman lineage 
in architecture. 

Such being the fact, what about the future *? Is it best to 
pattern after some historic style*? If so, what style 4 ? If not, is 
it possible to develop a new and American style"? Architects 
themselves hold all varieties of opinion. 

The outstanding protagonist for the Gothic revival is Mr. 
Cram. His various books are almost passionate appeals for 
a return to the mediaeval age. With him, as with all true 
artists, the argument is far deeper than a love of Gothic prin- 
ciples in structure or Gothic details in design. He is a lover 
of mediaevalism all along the line, the philosophy of 
Thomas Aquinas, the guild organization of industry, and 
the feudal system in society. Given these premises one must 
build as a Gothicist. 

Other builders are devoted to the classic strain. Professor 
A. D. F. Hamlin is a vigorous defender of the Renaissance, 
not only admitting that it incorporates intimations that are 
pagan, but claiming that it ought to. "The pagan spirit, 
which is the Renaissance revival, is the spirit which recog- 
nizes the world and the life in which we now live, and uses 
and enjoys them to the full; not as an antithesis to and 
destroyer of the Christian hope in the life to come, but (if 
rightly cultivated and apprehended) as its complement and 
even its ally. Neither spirit alone is sufficient for the full 
realization of our natures and capacities: in the greatest 
natures they are conjoined."* Mr. Thomas Hastings bases 
his usage of the classic mode on the supposition that we are 
still children of the Renaissance and live in the age begun 
by that movement. "What determining change have we had 
in the spirit and methods of life since the revival of learning 
and the Reformation to justify us in abandoning the Renais- 
sance or in reviving mediaeval art — Romanesque, Gothic, 
Byzantine, or any other style? Only the most radical changes 
in the history of civilization, such as, for example, the dawn 

* A. D. F. Hamlin, the Architectural Record, September, 1917, p. 272. 

• 196- 



Architectural Style 

of the Christian era and of the Reformation and the revival 
of learning, have brought with them correspondingly radical 
changes in architectural style." 

This is, of course, precisely the point at issue. If we are 
still to live in the Renaissance-Reformation age, Mr. Hast- 
ings is right. If this is the beginning of a new age in any 
strict sense of the term, then the door is open for the revival 
of any historic style and the development of new principles 
and new forms. Mr. Hastings continues: "The best Gothic 
work has been done and cannot be repeated. When at- 
tempted, it will always lack that kind of mediaeval spirit 
of devotion which is the life of mediaeval architecture. . . . 
Therefore, whatever we now build, whether church or dwell- 
ing, the law of historic development requires that it be Re- 
naissance, and if we encourage the true principles of compo- 
sition it will involuntarily be a modern Renaissance, and 
with a view to continuity we should take the eighteenth 
century as our starting point, because here practically ended 
the historic progression and entered the modern confusion."* 

The Reverend Professor Edward C. Moore in 1894, in his 
address concerning the then new church building of the 
Central Congregational Church in Providence, Rhode Is- 
land, said: "It has been my thought for many years that 
there was no style of architecture so suggestive and fitting 
for a Protestant church as that of the Renaissance. As the 
rise of Protestantism itself was allied with the rediscovery 
of certain elements of Greek thought and the application of 
these to the Roman church of the middle age, so the use of 
pure Greek ornamentation upon the massive vault and 
arches of the Romanesque order seemed to express the same 
idea. And it will be remembered that buildings precisely of 
this sort were characteristically produced at the end of the 
Renaissance and in the time of the Reformation." 

Other artists are bold enough to hope for the devising of 
new forms of architecture not so closely inspired by any- 
thing in the history of the art. Mr. Phillipps writes: "In 
these days, less than ever can Gothic content us," because 
religion must include the mind, the intellectual as well as 

* Hastings, "Modern Architecture," p. 7. 

• 197- 



Art & Religion 

the spiritual aspects of experience. Mr. Pond would repu- 
diate the legitimacy of a return to any historic mode, classic 
as well as Gothic. "Unless modernism can spend itself in an 
ecstasy of faith like that of mediaevalism or can practice the 
self-restraint, submit naturally and gracefully to the keen 
intellectual discipline and attain to the high idealism of the 
Greek, it is quite apparent how futile it were to seek now to 
express the un-uniiied and involved modern conditions by 
any return in their purity to mediaeval or Greek forms in 
art."* 

He believes that there is no distinctly Christian architec- 
ture as such, inasmuch as the history of Christendom has 
developed many varied styles, but that architectural style 
is the expression of the temperament and feeling of any age 
or people as a whole. The spirit of the age will determine 
the nature of the structures. "Mediaeval Christianity took 
on its emotionalism because the age was emotional. . . . 
Without a doubt Christianity was the fullest flower of 
mediaeval thought and life, and because of that the reli- 
gious edifices assumed their vast proportions and developed 
a plan which functioned for Christian uses. The fact that 
these buildings were mediaeval unsuits them in great meas- 
ure for Christian expression today, though replicas, trivial 
and otherwise, are being forced into present-day Christian 
service. Fully as logically might we employ the pure classic 
forms in the same service. . . . America has something 
worthy of expression, some ideal worthy of interpretation 
in creative architecture. No imitator, only a creator, will 
discover the ideal and disclose the form."f 

Still other artists, in the uncertainties of the hour, the 
character of the new age being as yet so indeterminate, and 
imbued with the historic continuity of human life, as it con- 
tinually revives and re-revives ancient problems and feel- 
ings, place less stress upon the matter of style. In a recent 
letter, Mr. William Orr Ludlow writes: "I have always 
taken the ground that almost any logical and beautiful style 
can be used ; whether it be Gothic, Colonial, Romanesque, or 

* Pond, "The Meaning of Architecture," p. in. 
t Ibid., p. 176. 

• 198- 



Architectural Style 

Renaissance, and that the question as to which is to be 
adopted depends on the money and material available, the 
tradition of the locality, — if there be such, — and the im- 
mediate surroundings." 

The Reverend Professor Frederick T. Persons of Bangor, 
Maine, in a recent address, expresses a similar view as his 
present wisdom on these mooted questions : "The new church 
architecture will not be confined to the two styles mentioned 
— the Colonial and the Gothic. Each of the historic styles 
at its highest will find a use. In an old eastern town, full of 
Georgian houses, the Colonial will always be in place. But in 
the newer towns and cities, some phase of the Gothic will be 
more appropriate. Even the basilica will occasionally be 
used. The same may be said of the Romanesque and the 
Byzantine, while various phases of the Renaissance will 
meet the needs of certain communities, particularly in the 
South and West, where the Spanish churches and missions 
will suggest appropriate models for modern churches. In 
our use of the great styles, there should be one guiding 
principle. It is comprehended in the term 'translation.' A 
translation in literature is the carrying over a masterpiece 
from one language to another, so that its essential qualities 
are preserved in the new tongue. A translation in architec- 
ture is precisely the same thing." 

My own feeling about the question is that we must go into 
it more deeply than the most of these suggestions. For the 
time being there is little else to be done than to work with 
adaptations or "translations" of historic styles, together 
with experiments in apparently new directions. What will 
come next after this, no one can very accurately forecast. 
It depends upon many forces and factors. If there is a con- 
tinued perpetuation of present-day denominational differ- 
ences, a like confusion and separatism will characterize the 
art of building. If there are vital and imaginative move- 
ments in the direction of unity of religious thought and feel- 
ing and purpose, there will be in architecture equally strong 
movements expressive of the vital life underneath. 

There are two great faults in the current Gothic revival. 
Both criticisms relate to the comparative provincialism and 

• i 99 . 



Art & Religion 

separatism amongst the different sectarian strains of spirit- 
ual lineage. On the one hand, the use of Gothic details in the 
buildings of non-liturgical churches, is for the most part so 
superficial and so connected with ungothic qualities in struc- 
ture and in proportion, that one feels the disharmony pro- 
foundly. This is further magnified, usually, by the kind 
of service conducted in the building. This disharmony of the 
service is still greater if the building is better. I happen to 
know of one church which in all its proportions and details 
is singularly rich in genuine Gothic feeling, but where the 
minister who conducts the service appears to be totally un- 
aware of the sort of building he is in. Certainly no one 
should attempt to revive the Gothic style unless he wishes 
to revive also at least some important elements of mediaeval 
worship. 

This objection does not obtain against the other element 
in the current Gothic revival. This other factor is the natural 
and proper use of the Gothic style by the Episcopal Church. 
In this case, of course, the buildings are more true to type 
because they are designed for the uses of a more nearly 
mediaeval liturgy. The criticism here, therefore, is not of 
the buildings themselves, but of the sectarian lineage as 
being inadequate for the new age, if we are to have a new 
age. It is not the fault of the gifted artists who have de- 
signed these delightful and truly wonderful new Gothic 
churches in America that they have built something which 
does not look sufficiently forward to anticipate the feelings 
of the new age: it is the fault of the church behind the 
artists. American architecture in general cannot closely fol- 
low this lead, for however scholarly and brilliant it may 
be in its own tradition, it is not a tradition sufficiently com- 
prehensive to gather to itself the complex and commingled 
strains of our spiritual character. Like others, it is now 
provincial and separatistic, only one of the elements in the 
new religion. There are many new hopes and aspirations of 
the American people which are not adequately expressed by 
the church building or by the liturgy of the Anglican tradi- 
tion. 

There ought to be added, however, the suggestion that a 

•200- 



Architectural Style 

new attention to the art of worship will likely revive many 
good things from mediaeval liturgies. If this should be the 
case, as I believe it will, buildings of Gothic derivation will 
be appropriate where the people understand and desire this 
meaning. 

In many ways it is, in the nature of the case, easier to 
express new thoughts by the usage of some one of the classic 
periods as the inspiration for a modern church building. Yet 
it is not easy to select any one of these as an adequate mode. 
To go far back to Greece or to Rome is to place too much 
paganism in the structure and also to come too close, as the 
Christian Scientists have done, to the forms characteristic 
of our state houses and post offices. The early basilica is too 
administrative and too authoritative. Some kinds of Renais- 
sance are too secular, worldly, or elegant. Some of the 
Romanesque is too crude. Further work in the Colonial 
strain will be appropriate for some churches. Further "trans- 
lations" of certain ideas or motives in Byzantine, Roman- 
esque, and early Renaissance structures can be made vital 
and beautiful. 

Can there be a new architecture^ In the sense of discon- 
nectedness with the past, no; any more than there can be a 
new learning disconnected from history. In the sense of 
freshly saying what we newly experience and feel about life, 
yes. What will the new architecture be 4 ? No one can say 
until the genius arrives who will know us so well that he can 
describe us. If you can say when the great American novel 
will appear, you will also date the advent of the great 
American church. 

It will not be pure Gothic, though it often use the pointed 
arch, but have something about it of greater breadth, com- 
prehensiveness, and intellectuality. It will express a greater 
clarity of mind, even about the past. It will teach the youth 
the glorious history of the church more artistically and 
symbolically than the bare churches do, but less vaguely and 
narrowly than by the shadowy figures in a Gothic portal or 
reredos. 

It will not be pure Renaissance, but intimate more aspira- 
tion, more faith, more zeal. It will correct the wandering 

•201 • 



Art & Religion 

eclecticism and futile false freedom that is a passing phase 
of our life. By greater height, it will lift the emotions, and 
by greater length fix the will, to definite choice and devotion. 
Nor will it be so tentlike and temporary as our common 
American church, which has neither classic lucidity of mind 
nor Gothic passion. Yet it will rise out of our best common 
American morality. With new forms for the new time it will 
yet be built upon the best in the Classicist's love of truth, 
the Romanticist's love of nature's beauty, and the Puritan's 
zeal for goodness. 



202 



Chapter XX : Structural Tone 

MANY people are aware of being affected by the 
tones of rooms. They have said to themselves, 
What a peaceful place ! or they have felt restless 
and uncomfortable without knowing precisely why. It is 
possible immediately and profoundly to influence people by 
the tonal character of an interior. Every competent house 
decorator is not only aware of this but is a student of the 
physical arrangements of shape and of color, of lights and 
of shadows, which will produce his desired effects. Every 
stage manager knows something about this and the best of 
them know a great deal about it. Designers of churches 
ought to know a great deal about it. If common people take 
the trouble to design cheerful playrooms or cheerful bed- 
rooms, quiet reading rooms and stimulating dining rooms, 
how much more should building committees seek to define 
the tone they desire in the House of God and seek to under- 
stand the physical compositions that produce that tone. 

Just precisely what physical arrangements can be counted 
upon for certain atmospheric effects is hard to say. This is 
the point at which we must fall back upon the genius of the 
artist. Partly it depends upon the style of the structure. As 
already suggested, the definite historic styles in themselves 
intimate certain emotional attitudes. Buildings which are 
not constructed in one of the great historic modes are, as 
would be expected, not very effective in intimating anything. 
They are neutral and nondescript, negative in their effects 
because not positive in their structural character. 

Probably a good deal more, however, depends upon the 
treatment of the style than upon the style itself. A Gothic 
building, active in structural principle, may be so designed 
as to produce an effect of greater repose than a badly con- 
structed classic building. The problem of a successful 
church, therefore, is not solved merely by the determination 

.203. 



Art & Religion 

of its style ; it turns also upon the manner of treatment to the 
end of producing a definite effect of tone. 

I am not attempting to solve the question here, but rather 
to raise it, and to indicate two or three of the most common 
faults and two or three of the desirable virtues in this 
matter. One goes into a church and straightway pronounces 
it cold, or homelike, or splendid, or elegant, or restless, or 
warm, or bare, or cheerful. Obviously none of these qualities 
is sufficient for a House of God and no church is successful 
if any of these adjectives can be applied to it as its chief 
characteristic. 

Definite tonal effects are easily produced if you know 
how. Not long since, I went into a moving picture theater 
that is more than ordinarily popular. The method used in 
this place was that of a lavish display of color. The orches- 
tral numbers between pictures were accompanied by skilful 
color settings, changed and modulated, until the rainbow 
itself was outdone. The color was literally sweet and syrupy. 
It was cloying and atrocious, but popular, and the artist 
knew precisely what he was doing with the clientele to which 
he made his appeal. The tone he developed in his theater is 
not a fit tone for a church. But the fact of his taking the 
pains to develop it, while the average church takes no pains 
to develop an effective tone, is at least one of the reasons 
why he gets more people than the church does. 

The most of church buildings fail, not because they can 
be at once so easily described, but because they are simply 
indefinite, Neutral, with no very positive qualities at all. 
The average church interior is uninteresting. Without neces- 
sarily being ugly in detail, there is no commanding excel- 
lence. The tinted walls, commonplace woodwork, and in- 
ferior windows rouse no surprise or delight in the visitor and 
become a deadening influence on the regular worshiper. The 
organ pipes which usually occupy the most noticeable space 
may not in themselves be offensive, but it is a proverty- 
stricken imagination which can conceive no more significant 
treatment of that precious space. Your building will have an 
effect whether you want it to or not, and this effect of in- 
effectiveness is one of the most unfortunate. 

•204. 



Structural Tone 

Very "close to the fault of neutrality is that of Com- 
fortableness. Some churches are so warm and cosy, with 
curving and well-cushioned pews, that the note of ease or 
comfort predominates. There is a kind of family-at-home 
feeling about this atmosphere which is pleasant, but it is 
not sufficient for a church. Sometimes a parish is so insistent 
on expressing its character in this way, though perhaps sub- 
consciously, that the air of a building good in other respects 
is vitiated by this fault. 

A very recently built church with several highly success- 
ful features of the structure, has been spoiled, in my view, 
by this tone of treatment. In this case it is so easy to specify 
the physical factors responsible for the fault as to be worth 
especial note. The building is the First Methodist Church 
of Evanston, Illiriois. In structure, it is very much more 
true to the proper feeling of its style than many recent 
church buildings in that style. It is a beautiful building; 
in the composition of the exterior fagade, in the height of 
the structural aisles and the proportions of nave arches and 
aisle windows, in the lift of the walls by a clerestory, in the 
beamed ceiling and in other features. 

But much of the structural effect is thrown away by an 
interior treatment entirely out of harmony with it. It is 
merely comfortable. Three things make it so. First, the 
strongly marked and strongly felt curves of the gallery balus- 
trade, both forward and rear, and of the pews on the floor 
are alone sufficient to produce this sense of comfort. These, 
by the way, constitute a great divergence from the tone of 
the structure itself. Paradoxically, this divergence makes 
you uncomfortable, the curved lines being set over against 
the lift of the piers and the vertical lines of the organ case. 
This gallery, like the running track of a gymnasium, cuts 
directly across the dominant structural lines. Nevertheless, 
seated on the first floor one gets chiefly the comfortable feel- 
ing of the curved lines. This is enhanced by the second ele- 
ment, the softly modulated color scheme. In the third place, 
there is nothing in the foreground composition of platform, 
choir loft, and organ pipes, either in design or color, to 
break this comfortable monotony. 

•205- 



Art & Religion 

There is nothing in the tone of this structure to give you, 
on the one hand, a certain sense of austerity which ought to 
characterize a House of God, nor, on the other, anything 
sharp or brilliant to quicken the emotions and fire the imag- 
ination. A church ought to have peace and repose about it, 
but not the merely physical peace of comfortableness. It 
only soothes the senses and does not symbolize the peace of 
a noble faith. 

Many people have objected to a stained glass window, 
or a picture, or candles, or an altar, or a symbolic table as 
being a sensuous element without place in a spiritual move- 
ment. But this church, seemingly designed for people who 
desired a spiritual experience without these sensuous aids, 
is in fact far more sensuous in its soporific comfortableness 
than a little Catholic chapel with bare walls and a single 
pictured Madonna. The picture appeals to the senses, to be 
sure, but with some hope of a spiritual effect. This church 
strongly affects the senses without any further spiritual 
effect. 

As our Protestant churches grow rich and wish to beautify 
their houses of worship, there is constant danger of this fault 
of Sensuousness. A building may be devoid of effigies or 
shrines and yet constitute a lower appeal to the physical 
senses than do candles and crosses. The attempt to produce 
a building in which a religious community may enjoy a free 
spiritual experience sometimes results in something the effect 
of which is more fleshly and materialistic than the symbolic 
forms so carefully avoided. 

Another common fault is the atmosphere of Coldness. 
Many church buildings are not merely uninteresting, they 
are definitely dreary. Some that are excellent in style, pro- 
portion, and decorative detail are nevertheless cold. The 
present interior of the Asylum Hill Church of Hartford, 
Connecticut, is open to this criticism. The exterior is warm 
and pleasant ; the Gothic piers and arches of the interior are 
beautiful in scale and design; the new woodwork in the 
chancel is exquisitely designed; but the total result is some- 
how too cool. If this effect is produced in a building other- 
wise so interesting and excellent, how much more is it liable 

• 206 • 



Structural Tone 

to be found where proportions are wrong and decorative 
details ugly. There are many American churches which repel 
people because they are chilly and barren in atmosphere. 

Recently the fault of Agitation has been developed in 
some church buildings. It is usually found in a structure 
consistent in style but badly handled in the matter of scale. 
The feeling is often due to the attempt to treat a small struc- 
ture in the same manner as a large one. I have noticed several 
buildings in the Gothic style, of moderate or small size, with 
as many structural members as could safely be utilized only 
in a much larger building. The main lines of the composition 
are lost in the manifold of detail. The effect is agitated. 
Such a building lacks quietness. It is in itself disturbing and 
disagreeable, however successful the details may be, con- 
sidered by themselves. 

To turn from faults to desirable virtues, the first require- 
ment in the tone of a religious structure is Repose. The 
reason for this is a fundamental one, the claim of the suffi- 
ciency of religion. No religion is satisfactory unless it is 
believed to be entirely competent to meet every human need. 
Men turn to religion and to the House of God to escape the 
common world of defeat, or shame, or injustice, to find the 
real world of the eternal goodness. 

The church building itself ought to be and can be of such 
a character as to draw people by its very atmosphere of har- 
mony and of peace. It ought to be so noble and dignified as 
itself to constitute a strong effect of the sufficiency of the 
faith to compose the hurt or faulty feelings of all those who 
come to it in their need. Men are not attracted by an insuffi- 
cient faith. It is possible for the church to say to people by 
its very architecture, Here is a place that understands: here 
is a faith that comprehends all things. 

In a general way the chief requirement in a structure 
which is to have something of this quality is the subordina- 
tion of every feature to the principal lines of the total 
design. 

The next most important note for a church building is 
that of Austerity. This also is rooted in the necessities of 
religion itself. A man cannot come to God and keep anything 

•207- 



Art & Religion 

back. He must bare himself in sincerity and in truth. The 
laws of nature are unyielding and religion can never afford 
to become soft and easy. It is possible for the church building 
itself to help people to be truthful with themselves. There 
should be something stern and rigorous about the structure, 
something restrained and austere. A church cannot be like a 
theater or a drawing room, it must ever call for the morti- 
fication of the flesh and the regnancy of the conscience. 

It is difficult for the artist to accomplish this without 
making the building cold, but it is possible. He can so re- 
strain the application of his decoration, he can so skilfully 
use a texture of surface or a color of surface as to develop 
this sense of austerity in the building itself, if he has the 
desire and the skill to do so. 

The qualities already mentioned require two others to 
counterbalance them, Warmth and Brilliance. By warmth I 
mean something that will welcome the lonely and the 
troubled so that the austere aspects of the building will not 
be forbidding. There are various resources of the artist for 
the attainment of this note. Every architect knows the mean- 
ing of an "inviting entrance," although not every architect 
succeeds in making one. 

The use of color in the narthex, vestibule, or foyer, or in a 
properly placed window, may succeed in sufficiently express- 
ing this requirement. It is important to beware of gloom. 
Sometimes an arrangement of sheer form has a strong effect 
on the tonal character of an interior. Amongst the designs 
of the more modern achitecture, I have seen one that inti- 
mates good cheer at once. It is the use, under a wide pointed 
arch, of concave rather than convex lines of window tracery. 
The effect is an almost dancing lightness. 

Something brilliant I believe to be needed to make a 
successful church building. The building should of itself 
stimulate the imagination and fire resolves. The repose of 
the structural composition and the austerity of the surface 
treatment need to be supplemented by a more active princi- 
ple. 

Part of this effect may come from the structure itself, as 
in the case of a truly characteristic Gothic building, which, 

• 208 • 




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although it may have a certain repose of commanding lines, 
has also a vigorous activity in the spring of high vaults. The 
historic solution of this requirement is, of course, the altar, 
which, with the decorations upon it, or those of the reredos 
back of it, or ciborium over it, constitutes an object intensely 
stimulating to the imagination. Without this, however, it is 
still possible for the artist to develop decorative motives, 
either massed or scattered, which will promote a mental 
activity. The use of windows, murals, mosaics, statues, or 
symbolic designs in the focal part of the structure may 
accomplish what is needed in this direction. 

Three other matters have always a powerful effect upon 
the structural tone of any building, the matters of propor- 
tion, scale, and materials. The relation of height, breadth, 
and length has immediately to do with the feeling one gets 
from a building. In a general way, as already intimated, 
breadth of structure is characteristic of the classic heritage 
and feeling, intimating an intellectual inclusiveness. If the 
latitude is too great, it suggests a too matter-of-fact view of 
life. The longer and higher structure is the more emotional 
and active and perhaps the more mystical. A genuine Gothic 
building is very long and very high in proportion to its 
width. It is possible to choose a classic style of detail and 
build with a spirit almost Gothic, by the increase of length 
and height. Just so, Gothic details may be applied to a 
building so wide as to become uncharacteristic in structural 
tone. In such cases, it is obviously better to use the style 
which more truly comports with the desired proportions and 
tone. 

In any case, an oblong space is superior to a square one. 
There are few successful equilateral churches in the world 
and the most of these are strongly modified as to interior 
proportion by the addition of an apse or choir, as in San 
Vitale, Ravenna, or by the extension of semi-domes, as in 
the ancient Byzantine churches. The square interior makes 
a focal point of interest almost impossible. It hinders con- 
centration of attention or of action. Even although we may 
not wish to use the Gothic style, our age probably needs a 
corrective to its scattering and individualistic effort and 

•211 • 



Art & Religion 

more of the spirit of concentrated ideals and common devo- 
tion, which may be greatly assisted 03^ buildings more nearly 
Gothic in their proportions. 

Other important matters hinge upon the problem of scale. 
A large building where, also, all the apertures and all the 
decorative designs are large, will appear to be smaller than 
it is, as, for instance, St. Peter's in Rome. A small church 
may be made to appear larger if the doors and windows are 
minimized and if the furniture of the interior is designed 
as small as possible in scale. Oftentimes the uncomfortable 
agitation of a moderate-sized building is due to faulty scale. 
A change in the scale of all details would yield in many a 
church a tone of dignity and repose which it now lacks. 

Very much can be accomplished for the structural tone of 
a building by the right choice of materials. My own feeling 
is that bare stone or bare brick is far superior for the interior 
of a church to anything else. The desirable austerity of the 
building cannot be so directly accomplished in any other 
way. These surfaces, however, will produce a sense of cold- 
ness unless the builders are willing to introduce strongly con- 
trasting elements of warmth or brilliance such as have been 
suggested. Some of the recently built churches with stone 
interiors, amongst non-liturgical bodies, are decidedly cold 
because of insufficient color in other ways. They need altars, 
or murals, or banners, or bright vestments to give them fire 
and warmth. 

A building committee need not be afraid of the cheaper 
grades of material. It is more important to employ a compe- 
tent artist who will produce a successful design of the right 
proportion and scale than it is to spend the money for costly 
materials. A very beautiful church may be made of the 
cheapest brick, unplastered outside or inside, if the structure 
is well designed. I have often seen church buildings overly 
fine and elaborate, the surface finish running ahead of struc- 
tural invention and tonal character. Apartment house brick 
in a building well designed is better than marble badly 
fashioned. Pine boards, simply stained, if well cut, are better 
than rosewood, varnished and polished, in shapes inappro- 
priate to a church. 

• 212 • 



Structural Tone 

No one but an artist can solve these questions of structural 
tone. This does not always mean a professional artist. There 
are humble parsons who have more artistic feeling than some 
conspicuous architects. As a general rule, however, only the 
very best professional architects know enough about all these 
matters of light and shadow, color, texture, scale, propor- 
tion, and design to put together many elements into a simple 
and successful composition for a church. 

A church building casts its influence upon a community 
for years, sometimes for generations. A noble building seems 
to have an almost living air and spirit, and may become a 
benign power in the lives of the people round about it. It is a 
great blessing to any town to possess such a structure. It is 
to do one of the most certain of public goods to have a hand 
in the erection of a beautiful church. 



213 



Chapter XXI: The Chancel 



THERE is an outstanding fact respecting church 
building in America which is remarkably significant. 
It is the fact that numbers of buildings have been 
erected for the use of so-called non-liturgical churches with 
the communion table as the center of the interior composi- 
tion. Although strictly speaking the word chancel refers to 
the railing which separates the space allotted especially to 
the clergy, there is no better word to use in describing the 
separated space that is formed in the apse of the church 
when the communion table is placed at the head of the build- 
ing, somewhat elevated, the pulpit upon one side forward, 
and the lectern on the other side forward. 

Such an arrangement, even by historical usage of the 
term, may properly be called a chancel, though in a larger 
church this space may incorporate also the choir. This is, 
of course, the arrangement used in the early Christian basili- 
cas. It has been perpetuated in the West in the Roman 
Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and to some extent in other 
bodies. Now it is being revived with remarkable rapidity 
among the free churches. The illustrations of this volume 
display some of the most successful of those recently con- 
structed. 

I am sure that I do not know of all of them, but I do have 
information of more than fifty of these churches outside of 
the Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, and Reformed 
Communions. This is a sufficient number to constitute an 
architectural tendency of note. A few of these are not recent. 
The First Parish Church and the Central Church, Boston, 
are older buildings with this arrangement. The latter was 
built by Upjohn in 1867. The Central Church of Provi- 
dence, Rhode Island, and the Central Church of Worcester, 
Massachusetts, also follow the ancient usage. Not all of the 
Reformed churches have kept the plan, but a large number 

• 214- 



The Chancel 

of them, especially in Pennsylvania, have not only a chancel 
but an altar in them. Most of the others are altogether 
twentieth century buildings. 

It is extremely significant that this movement has been 
developing not merely in one body but in several and in 
widely scattered communities. And it is altogether too ex- 
tensive a movement to be laid to the door of any small 
coterie of artists or of ministers. It is rather a growing ex- 
pression of dissatisfaction with present forms, of an expand- 
ing culture, and of the spirit of experimentation. Presby- 
terian, Congregational, Unitarian, Baptist, Methodist Epis- 
copal, and Universalist churches are represented in the list. 

The reasons for this development are several and in 
several areas — artistic, ecclesiastical, religious, and prac- 
tical. 

Probably the chief feeling which has prompted the move- 
ment is artistic. Every work of art is a composition in har- 
mony. Every artistic composition has some clearly selected 
method of unity, some plan of bringing together diverse and 
manifold elements into the single accord of the whole. In 
painting, there is a point of "high light" upon which the 
lines of light and shadow converge, and to which the eye 
turns naturally and easily. Pictures which do not possess 
excellence of composition are unsatisfying to the physical 
sense and thus aesthetically weak. 

Just so, an architectural interior is satisfactory according 
as the physical composition is so unified as to assist the com- 
posure of the feelings of people in it. It needs a "high light," 
a point of commanding interest, in precisely the same way 
as does a painting. The communion table or altar at the head 
of the apse is artistically a far better center for the composi- 
tion than a pulpit. 

The pulpit is usually an upstanding vertical object set in 
such a manner as to split up the space and divide the atten- 
tion rather than center it. You may go into almost any 
annual exhibition of painters' societies and you will find 
very few vertical compositions. Portraits are often such, but 
the peculiar elements of interest in a portrait make it a more 
successful vertical composition than a pulpit can ever be. 

.215. 



Art & Religion 

The pulpit is not especially interesting unless there is some- 
one in it. It is therefore not a successful "high light" during 
all the parts of the public service other than the sermon 
and for all other uses of the church building. 

Perhaps more profoundly still the artistic advantage of 
the chancel arrangement is its depth. Attention is not only 
scattered but blocked and limited by a great unrelieved wall 
space. By the more remote chancel, and its smaller area, 
attention is gathered together, led forward, and concen- 
trated. These and other artistic reasons are in themselves 
sufficient to demand the change which is taking place in the 
present-day architectural treatment of the church interior. 

The religious and ecclesiastical reasons are more impor- 
tant to some than the artistic. The pulpit at the center cer- 
tainly tends to throw the chief dependence of the service 
upon the sermon, and in such a manner as greatly to mini- 
mize the possibilities and values of other exercises of wor- 
ship. A successful chancel far better creates an atmosphere 
of worship before ever the service begins. And after the ser- 
vice has begun, it fosters reverence through all the parts. It 
tends to minimize the personality of the minister and to 
merge him into the background as a voice and messenger of 
the historic church and the communal faith. 

Moreover, it differentiates his priestly and prophetic func- 
tions, thus enriching and clarifying the aspects of the reli- 
gious experience. Strangely enough, it accomplishes all this 
without losing the vitality or function of the pulpit. Leaving 
the chancel and ascending the pulpit, the minister thus 
selects it as the appointed station for his own free utterance 
and whatever prophetic word has been given him to speak. 
The sermon is not minimized, while other parts of the ser- 
vice may be greatly improved by the greater significance of 
the objects of visual attention and by the greater variety of 
movement in the conduct of the service rendered possible by 
the central chancel plan. It is harder for any man to conduct 
a loose, flippant, or formless service in such a building. 

For special services the arrangement is far superior, freed 
of the awkward and immovable pulpit platform. The com- 
munion service is greatly enhanced in dignity by the phys- 

• 2l6- 



The Chancel 

ical aids and evident honor of such a setting. The com- 
munion table and all that it represents in the devotional life 
of the Christian Church is not assigned to a narrow space 
and passageway below the pulpit platform where it is diffi- 
cult to conduct the service without the sense of constriction 
or awkwardness or the feeling of its being after all an inci- 
dental affair. Special public exercises involving large num- 
bers of persons are more impressively managed. Organ reci- 
tals with no persons at all visible may be made much more 
effective in a building which itself conveys the Christian 
message and helps to supply a varied yet pertinent content 
to the imaginative experience engendered by the music. 
Such a church building is far superior as a place for silent 
meditation and prayer, as it is open during all the days of 
the week. 

In addition, the value of retaining excellent traditions is 
worthy of consideration. It is the traditional plan of the 
Christian Church, so arranged long before any of the con- 
troversies, in the midst of which the arrangement was 
changed, were developed. One may be eager to be rid of 
mediaeval ideas that do not comport with modern religion, 
and zealous to go forward to the free thought of the future, 
and yet be a lover of excellent and beautiful traditions 
established by the fathers. This physical setting for the 
service of Christian worship is one of the traditions of the 
early church worth reviving. As in the case of the artistic 
reasons, the religious considerations also strongly favor the 
tendency already developing in this direction. 

Practically, also, the plan has many advantages. It saves 
space, easily utilizing the corners of a rectangular building 
for organ, choir room, choir benches, and minister's study, 
or vestry. The placement of the choir stalls or benches on 
either side of a chancel in the traditional manner enables at 
once a more beautiful and a more practical management of 
the choir. For processional hymns the singers may be more 
prominent, as they should be; and when not standing to 
sing, they are desirably less conspicuous. The chancel plan 
is practically more manageable for wedding ceremonies, 

•217. , 



Art & Religion 

funeral services, for pageantry of any kind, and for special 
exercises of children. 

These and other considerations have been in the minds of 
clergymen and architects in their plans. The Rev. Shepherd 
Knapp of Worcester, Massachusetts, has written: "From a 
practical point of view the chancel arrangement is especially 
advantageous for special services, such as The Communion, 
funerals, weddings, and any festival service when proces- 
sions and floral decorations come into use. The pulpit in the 
middle is much in the way for such occasions. The pulpit 
itself insists upon being the focus instead of some special 
feature of interest. In effect you have to discard all that lies 
behind the pulpit in weddings, for instance, and the space 
in front is usually restricted. The chancel arrangement is 
beautiful at the Communion Service — the table in the 
middle on the higher level where all can see it, the minister 
and deacons occupying the chancel seats." 

The Rev. Charles E. Park of the First Church in Boston 
speaks of the architectural propriety of the plan: "Ours is a 
pure Gothic church, a dim and very ecclesiastical interior, 
with steep trussed roof and high narrow stained glass win- 
dows. To my mind, such an interior rather predetermines the 
chancel arrangement. Anything else would be architectur- 
ally, or at least traditionally, incongruous, and hence it 
would not be beautiful." 

Concerning the Central Congregational Church of Boston 
the Rev. Willard L. Sperry suggests its symbolic value: "I 
like the general arrangement. The value of the whole scheme 
seems to me to lie in the opportunity given for some symbolic 
suggestion as to the several functions, priestly and prophetic, 
in the conduct of public worship. To have a little area in 
which to move, gives added interest to the general fabric of 
the service, and seems to me to dignify the various items in 
the service, giving each a certain distinctiveness of its own. 
We have a big communion table which I suppose may be 
called an 'altar.' At the celebration of the Communion it is 
moved out from the wall and the minister sits behind it. I 
suppose that is unecclesiastical and would shock any high 
churchman but in the Communion it preserves something of 

• -2l8. 




Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, Architects. 

SOUTH CHURCH • NEW YORK CITY • REFORMED 

Impressive stonework in piers, vaulting, and altar. The light comes 
through the lofty clerestory windows above low side aisles. 



The Chancel 

the dignity of the old Congregational idea. The deacons sit 
in the chancel seats on either side of the table." 

In a letter from one of the officials of the Presbyterian 
Church of Englewood, New Jersey, is the following testi- 
mony: "About two years ago our church was remodelled 
from the stereotyped kind of pulpit and choir arrangement 
common in many Presbyterian Churches into what every 
member of our Church now feels is a satisfying result. There 
was a little question at the outset as to the propriety of the 
chancel arrangement in a Presbyterian Church but examples 
of this style of ecclesiastical architecture in Congregational 
and Presbyterian churches that were submitted by the archi- 
tect soon overcame any question. The result has more than 
justified the prediction and our entire congregation is rejoic- 
ing in the very beautiful and appropriate result accomplished. 
I am enclosing under separate cover photographs showing 
two views of the chancel and a view of the nave. If you 
could compare these with a photograph of the church in its 
previous arrangement, you would see what a great improve- 
ment has been made from every standpoint." 

There yet remain certain difficult problems, both reli- 
gious and artistic, respecting the ideas and symbols of cen- 
tral prominence in the future church. Artistically, is the 
communion table itself a sufficiently interesting object of 
visual attention 4 ? Not, I think, unless the setting is very 
successfully handled. This has been the chief problem of 
the architects who have used this plan. I have nowhere seen 
as yet a wholly successful solution. 

In the building designed by Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, 
for the South Reformed Church, New York, now the Park 
Avenue Presbyterian, the communion table itself, made of 
light-colored stone, and faced with a mosaic, is a clear-cut 
and strongly attractive center of interest, and is particularly 
well surrounded, — by tessellated flooring, choir benches, the 
stone arches of the octagonal chevet and exquisite though 
restrained clergy stall carvings. As a whole, this chancel is 
one of the most successful solutions of the problem under 
discussion. 

In other instances, as at the First and Second churches of 

• 221 • 



Art & Religion 

Boston and the Church of the Divine Paternity in New 
York, there are mosaic compositions in the wall immediately 
behind the communion table, which in these cases is placed 
against the wall. 

In the most of the new buildings with chancels there is 
not much difference in tone or light value between the table 
and its background of clergy stalls or minister's chair and 
deacons' seats. Some have used a strongly colored fabric or 
dossal for the space behind the table, as at The House of 
Hope, Presbyterian, St. Paul. Still others have failed to 
make a "high light" out of the table at all because of the 
strong character of the chancel windows at the head of the 
apse and the placement of the table in such a way as to fall 
within the shadow. The eye is thus constantly lifted away 
from the center of liturgical and symbolical interest to the 
place which should be the secondary point of light in the 
composition. It may be replied that the painted glass figures 
of the window ought to be the primary "high light." There 
is much to say for this. I strongly incline, however, to the 
other view. 

Exactly this problem of a sufficiently prominent center of 
interest led to the development of the ciborium, or pillared 
canopy over the altar of the early church. Mr. Walter 
Lowrie has clearly explained this: "With the construction 
of great basilicas there arose an architectural necessity for 
this or for some similar device. The altar, no matter what 
might be the size of the church, retained always the same 
very limited dimensions. Of itself, therefore, it was ill fitted 
to constitute the architectural centre of a huge basilica; it 
needed then as it has always needed, some architectural 
adjunct which might vary in size with the proportions of 
the building. . . . The reredos of the Gothic church was 
another solution under changed conditions. It can hardly be 
accounted so successful a one."* 

The problem is largely solved for an ordinary building 
if a cross is placed upon the table or candles are used. A 
white cross against a dark background, or contrariwise, at 
once constitutes a compelling point of visual interest and 

* Lowrie, "Monuments of the Early Church," p. 123. 

•222- 



The Chancel 

becomes the artistic as well as the symbolic center of the 
whole structural composition. This is the reason for its 
historical development and for its continued usage in all 
the old churches and this is the reason for its recent revival 
by some of the free churches. 

One of the most simple and beautiful altars I have seen 
is that of the Second Parish Church of Newton, Massachu- 
setts, an orthodox Congregational Church. In this church 
there is no question as to where the look of the eye will 
center. There is very little except sheer prejudice in the way 
of a more widespread adoption of this solution. Many of 
the Reformed chu r ches, although meanwhile developing a 
thoroughly modern theology, have never abandoned the 
traditional symbol of Christianity. 

The fact that the churches most notable in its revival are 
those of liberal thought is evidence of their view that it is 
not incompatible with a modern theology. In discussing the 
question with a friend of mine who is a man of international 
repute, an orthodox minister, and one of the most typical 
Puritans of the present day, I was surprised to hear his warm 
commendation of this procedure. He feels it to be a great 
assistance to reverence and dignity much needed in these 
days, to have a definite altar in a Christian church. 

There is no essential reason against the placing of a 
wooden cross in the most prominent place of the church 
building, unless that reason applies equally against placing 
the idea of the cross in a prominent place in theology or 
hymnology, or in decorating other parts of the building with 
many crosses of wood or of glass. If we are to use symbolism 
at all, it is better to do it heartily. Assigning the cross to 
inconspicuous decorative positions looks as though we were 
half ashamed of it. 

There is no great danger of mistaking symbols for realities 
now. No one regards Dante's great symbolic portrayals as 
facts. Long ago the great Protestant painter, Albert Diirer, 
said, "A Christian would no more be led to superstition by a 
picture or an effigy than an honest man to commit murder 
because he carries a weapon by his side."* 

♦Quoted from Crouch, "Puritanism in Art," p. 310. 

• 223- 



Art & Religion 

If the new religion is to be a composite and the future 
church a community church in the most inclusive sense, it 
would be an impropriety to make any such use of the cross. 
If it is to be definitely Christian, there are many reasons for 
the central prominence of the cross, even to the liberal 
thought which does not accept traditional views of atone- 
ment. It is a symbol of uttermost love, a symbol of personal 
salvation, an ever present call for personal acceptance of the 
law of love even to the extent of self-sacrifice. 

It is possible, on the other hand, that the next generation 
will be moved by a strong sense of the value of the com- 
munion service because of its suggestion of brotherhood. 
The service will be for many not so much a memorial of the 
sacrifice which historically was the tragic end of a beautiful 
brotherhood, as a memorial of that brotherhood in its vital- 
ity and hope. It will commemorate for them the fellowship 
of a band of young men under the spirit of an incomparable 
leader, eager and determined to reform the whole structure 
of the national faith of his people, and set going new and 
liberating principles in their moral life. 

I hope to live long enough to see some church of noble and 
brotherly people build a great building for the worship of 
their community in which a physically large table of com- 
munion set in an ample space may be the center of the public 
exercises which most movingly celebrate and reenkindle the 
ideals of brotherhood. 

The use of candle light is one of the historic solutions of 
the problem of artistic "high light" for an interior composi- 
tion. Some of the Dutch churches which do not use a cross 
upon the altar, place candles there. Psychologically, there 
is much to say for it. The eye, however much it may wander 
to other beauties in the building or distract the mind with 
other thoughts, is always brought back to the strongest light. 
The effect speedily becomes more than physical and tends to 
empty the mind and make it ready for the message of the 
service or of the preacher. 

This is no more than the logic of the aesthetic experience 
in general. It is the reason why you go out of doors for a 
long walk to think over an important matter, despite the 

•224- 




ft 



3 v, 
553 O 



3 ^ 









The Chancel 

fact that you may be unable to proceed with the thinking 
because of the obtrusion of trees or sky or water, the physical 
charm which these exert and the empty-headedness which 
at first they seem to induce. But that empty-headedness is 
the first thing you need, the preliminary condition to the 
clear-headedness you came for. Just so, the physical beauties 
of the house of worship should tend to produce this desirable 
condition of readiness for the positive message of the hour. 

Some of the churches which have moved the pulpit from 
the central position have made an ineffective compromise. 
They have moved it and not moved it, building a prominent 
pulpit from which the sermon is delivered, retaining a less 
prominent desk in the middle of the platform. Such is the 
plan in the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago. The 
pulpit proper is very beautiful and placed in a most com- 
manding position on the great pier of the crossing, but the 
point of the central visual interest is weakly handled. It is 
an uninteresting mass of chairs, tables, and choir screening. 
There is nothing religiously appropriate in the prominence 
of a choir collected in a gallery behind the preacher. In this 
building especially, the long lines of a majestic nave strongly 
lead the attention toward the focal point, but when it gets 
there, there is nothing there. The whole effect is as if you 
were to look upon the Sistine Madonna after someone had 
pasted blank paper over the face of the Virgin. 

Shall the average church, then, build with a chancel or 
not*? It depends upon what kind of exercise is to be con- 
ducted in it, and partly upon what the people go there for. 
If the building is to be merely an auditorium, that is, a place 
to hear in, then it makes little difference. But more and more, 
modern churches are not being considered as meetinghouses 
or auditoriums. 

When the church spends its money to make a more beau- 
tiful structure, it does not do so in order to improve it as a 
place to hear in but as a place to look in. But so soon as you 
desire to make a successful appeal to the eye, you must fol- 
low the canons of looking and not those of hearing. 

If the dependence of future church worship is to be chiefly 
the sermon, the central pulpit is sufficient. But if there is to 

•227- 



Art & Religion 

be developed in any kind of genuine sense an art of worship, 
then there is demanded a more manageable space and a more 
symbolic differentiation of parts. The possibilities of liturgi- 
cal and ceremonial improvements are greatly obstructed by 
high platform and central pulpit; and this entirely apart 
from any question of reviving any ancient ritual. The tradi- 
tional chancel plan is just as desirable from the point of 
view of the invention of new kinds of exercises. It is adapt- 
able in almost unlimited ways. There are no sound objections 
against it. It dignifies a very small chapel : it is necessary to a 
great cathedral-like church. It is beautiful, practical, 
churchly, and positively suggestive to the religious imagina- 
tion. 



228 



Chapter XXII : Practicable Matters 

IT is always advisable for persons who wish to build 
beautifully to be sure that they are also building prac- 
tically. The parish life of most modern churches in- 
cludes a greater variety of other concerns than those of wor- 
ship. These must not be forgotten. And, also, any movement 
to improve the beauty of church buildings in general should 
be concerned for the small parish as well as for the larger. 
The suggestions must be practicable on a small scale. 

First of all, educational facilities are required. It is no 
longer considered important for this purpose that there be 
an assembly hall. The younger scholars need separate de- 
partmental rooms, the older should meet for assembly in the 
main church. But all the junior, intermediate, and adult 
classes should be provided with separate classrooms. These 
rooms may be also utilized as clubrooms. The Church 
School building should have very much the character of the 
regular public school building, on a smaller scale. Some of 
the recent church plants with an elaborate provision for the 
Church School have more halls and large rooms than they 
need and not enough small classrooms and clubrooms. 

The social life of the modern parish requires at least one 
large space for church suppers and other large gatherings. 
It ought also to have, wherever possible, smaller rooms that 
are particularly attractive in their furnishings, one or more 
clublike rooms for men, and one or more pleasant parlors 
for women. If there is a gymnasium, the same space may be 
arranged for dramatic presentations such as are not suitable 
for the main church. 

The placement of the building, large or small, deserves 
the greatest consideration. If possible, the floor of the main 
church should not be too far above the ground. An easy and 
inviting entrance is very difficult when too many stair steps 
are necessary. Whether the church be in the city or in the 

•229- 



Art & Religion 

country, passers-by should be able at times to get a glimpse 
of the lighted interior, and to hear the sounds of the organ. 
All the educational and social rooms should be placed above 
the ground if possible. 

The smaller church and its equipment needs to be given 
more attention on the part of architects. There is a too 
common feeling that only the large and rich church can have 
a beautiful building and adequate parish equipment. It is 
true that most of the significant illustrations of current 
usages as to architectural style relate to large and costly 
buildings. Whatever is done in the large, however, sooner or 
later affects the style and manner of the small. Precisely the 
same canons of good artistry apply to the most modest 
buildings. 

It is no more costly to build a very small church beauti- 
fully than it is to build an ugly one. On the contrary, my 
own observation leads me to think that much of the unneces- 
sary expense in many small churches has detracted from the 
beauty of the buildings rather than added to them. Far too 
many small churches are not sufficiently plain, direct, and 
simple. Success in this matter is not a question of materials 
nor of size but of taste and artistry. 

Yet there are especial problems in the small building. It 
is difficult to design a small church so that it will intimate 
big ideas. It is hard to secure sufficient dignity in a structure 
that does not have an amplitude of scale, but it can be done. 
Mr. Cram's little chapel at Arlington and Mr. Goodhue's 
little side chapel at St. Bartholomew's in New York are 
scarce twenty feet wide, but they are more dignified and im- 
pressive than some of the biggest churches in the country. 
They prove conclusively that the small building need not 
lack dignity. By the right proportions and something to give 
the interior a religious tone, a very small church may be just 
as inducive to reverence as a large one. On the whole, no 
single feature of the plan besides these matters of proportion 
and tone will so help the small building in dignity as a 
chancel. The simple arrangement of placing the communion 
table centrally in the interior composition at once specifies 
the religious character of the building. Immediately there is 

.230. 




Ralph Adams Cram, Architect. 



ST. ANNE S CHAPEL • ARLINGTON HEIGHTS • MASSACHUSETTS 

Unplastered walls are treated with whitewash directly upon the 

stones. The tone is at once barren and cheerful, a festive 

note being added by the bent-iron candelabra. 



Practicable Matters 

conveyed a sense of dignity far superior to that of any 
structure of the purely auditorium type. 

Some of the denominational church building societies are 
still permitting extremely unfortunate practices in the erec- 
tion of small church buildings. Others have made great 
advances and are prepared to offer detailed designs for small 
churches that are at once practicable and beautiful. The 
Bureau of Architecture of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
has published some highly creditable plans and designs. It is 
no longer necessary for the small church to engage an expen- 
sive architect. It is usually desirable to avoid an inexpensive 
one. 

Another very practical question in church building is that 
of partial construction. Many church committees are en- 
amored of the so-called unit system, and proceed to erect a 
parish house long before they are prepared to build the 
church. There are many cases in which this is desirable. In 
many others it is gravely unfortunate. Particularly is this 
true now that the Church School assembly hall is not so 
desirable as it used to be considered. What is the advantage 
in erecting a Church School house with a large assembly hall 
and having an ugly building until the main church is built, 
and thereafter possessing a useless assembly hall*? 

It is especially unfortunate if the parish house unit is 
built in such a way as to be later located on the flank of the 
main church building, arranged to be an addition to the 
seating capacity of the church. This very procedure is one 
of the most common and certainly the worst possible plan. 
The final result in such a church is an ugly interior, whether 
the doors of the Church School hall be open or closed. And 
with the growing tendency for the conduct of the Church 
School worship in the main church the flanking hall is more 
or less unnecessary in any case. 

It is far better to build the principal structure first. The 
only objection to this is on the part of those who wish to wait 
until they can afford to build the church more elaborately 
and beautifully. The only reply is that it need not be more 
costly than the other plan. To begin with, a building can be 
given churchly proportions and erected with cheap materials. 

•233- 



Art & Religion 

Later it can be beautified by rich furniture, by decorative 
murals or windows, by the addition of a tower or spire, by 
covering the outside with plaster or better faced brick. 
Meanwhile, the outlines of the structure tell their own story 
and make a churchly appeal in a way that is impossible for 
a nondescript-looking building at the back of a lot. 

One of the most simple plans for such a structure is that 
of a plain rectangle about twice as long as broad. The social 
room may be in the basement. At the front of the church may 
be a chancel with two small rooms in the two corners, one 
for the minister's study or Church School classroom, the 
other for stair hall and choir. At the other end of the build- 
ing may be two crosswise rooms one above the other, for 
primary scholars and for classroom space, or for small meet- 
ings. When the time for improvement comes, the lower of 
these rooms becomes a foyer, yielding also some space for 
more pews. The upper room becomes the gallery of the 
church. Further Church School classrooms and social rooms 
will be built as an additional parish house equipment. Some 
such procedure as this is scarcely more expensive and far 
superior, artistically, to the plan of erecting a parish house 
first. It provides very creditably for the Church School, 
while the public worship of the church is far better encour- 
aged than when conducted in a temporary and ill-propor- 
tioned hall. 

More important than anything else suggested in this chap- 
ter is the practicable character of structural beauty. No 
building can be artistically satisfactory if a preconceived 
design or style is foisted upon the structure to the detriment 
of its practicable character. The sense of the appropriateness 
of the structure with respect to its materials, location, and 
uses is essential to the aesthetic enjoyment of it. The artistic 
forms, both structural and decorative, must be fashioned, at 
least in part, out of the utilitarian demands of the situation. 
The use of concrete developed in modern times, and still 
more the use of steel, adds to the structural methods of 
modern buildings. As time goes on, there will be increasing 
skill in the mastery of the aesthetic possibilities of these 
materials. 

•234- 



Practicable Matters 

To recognize the aesthetic worth of that which is also 
practicable is not to admit that every practicable building 
is beautiful. The elements of scale, proportion, decorative 
design, and other factors must constantly be remembered, 
particularly in the attempt to build beautiful churches for 
the worship of God. Nevertheless, these elements may be in 
every other way satisfactory without yielding the shy secret 
of beauty, unless also the structure be evidently recognized 
as practicable. 



235 



Chapter XXIII : Religious Ideas for the Architect 



ON the whole, the architects are less to blame than 
the churches for failing to make of church buildings 
successful symbols of religion. They have been 
quite as zealous as the churches in the reestablishment of a 
nobler conception of the church building. In a recent letter, 
Mr. William Orr Ludlow has discussed this point. "There 
has been a very distinct tendency on the part of some of the 
Protestant denominations to consider the church building 
an auditorium and to make comfort, acoustical qualities and 
clever arrangement of plan the criterion of excellence. These 
things are all essential but after all are merely the good 
body and unless the spirit is conserved, the best part is 
wanting. 

"A building is an expression of purpose and the church 
building is something more than a comfortable and conven- 
ient place for the worship of God. It may be unfashionable 
in these days to speak of the 'House of God,' but that very 
fact indicates the lack of appreciation of the real purpose 
and real ownership of the building. 

"If then it really is God's House and not merely a conven- 
ient place in which to worship Him, any true architectural 
expression must recognize the qualities and character of the 
real owner. If someone builds a house for me and builds it 
without recognizing anything of my character and tastes, to 
say the least, he is an unfaithful steward of my funds. To 
build the House of God and make beauty, dignity and spirit- 
uality, as expressed in architecture, entirely secondary to 
good heating and acoustics is to build God's House without 
God." 

The first religious idea, therefore, for the architect to 
bear in mind, in planning his church, is that it is to be a 
House of God. The building as viewed from without or from 
within should be definitely recognizable as standing for 

.236. 








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religion, an ever present reminder of God. There should 
never be any question as to whether it might possibly be a 
post office or any other secular structure. Forms, styles, pro- 
portions which have been commonly in use amongst the 
people for other public purposes, though perhaps in them- 
selves appropriate, should not be used for a church. 

For the clear representation of religion, probably no 
structural feature is so important in the exterior aspect of 
the church as a tower or spire. Some churches in the Gothic 
style have been so designed as to produce the aspiring effect 
without a tower. By the lofty and narrow proportions of the 
facade, and the prominence of tall, pointed windows, they 
give an impression of lift and upward reach. But it is diffi- 
cult to do and not often successful. The typical church 
should have a spire or tower. 

Just what interior elements can be utilized to convey the 
feeling of religion is for each artist to decide for himself. On 
the whole, probably nothing is so tangibly effective at this 
point as the planning of some kind of chancel, as already 
suggested. But the desire and the spirit of the builder is 
more important than the forms he chooses for his expres- 
sion. It is in the nature of the case difficult for an ungodly 
man to build a House of God. Whatever the style the first 
demand of the building is that it somehow convey a sense 
of God. In such a church, sometimes at least, men who have 
come to admire will remain to pray. 

In this connection it is worth suggesting that the concep- 
tion of a church building as a House of God relates itself 
to two important religious faiths, one ancient and one 
modern. The Eastern Church has always emphasized the 
Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. Present-day religious 
faith emphasizes the conception of the Immanence of God. 
These are only different forms for solving the same religious 
problems. The architect should understand something of the 
present vitality of this present thought of the immanence of 
God, in its two most important aspects. First, it means that 
present religion conceives of God as at work creating and 
recreating the world, especially as actually an energy and 
influence in the spirits of men. The second aspect is the 

•239- 



Art & Religion 

thought of God as ever revealing the truth. A House of God 
should in some sense be a record of the historic triumphs 
of religion, a statement of old faiths which are more and 
more confidently held to be true, together with a genuine 
expectancy of larger light and nobler success yet to come. 

A church should have Man in it as well as God in it. It 
should be a strong and manly structure — honest, depend- 
able, vigorous in all its structural character. It should not be 
overly decorated nor too delicate. If possible, the structural 
principle of the building should be clear and evident, rather 
than obscured or covered up. It is, for instance, to me a very 
great regret that the heavy masonry arch over the crossing 
in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, cannot 
be seen. It has been covered with lesser slabs and stones. In 
an age which has developed so little of such structural sta- 
bility, I would like to see the very stones that hold the great 
building up. Let the architect reveal the structure wherever 
it is possible. 

In its symbolism, also, it should have something to glorify 
the achievements of man and express confidence and hope 
in the development of man. Without worshiping the saints, 
we can enlarge and brighten life by vivid recollections of 
the leaders of the human race. It is not possible or desirable 
to make of any church a Pantheon or a Hall of Fame. It is 
possible to put in every church something to connect the 
religious experience of the present with the spiritual achieve- 
ments of the great and good in the history of the human 
conquests of mind and heart. 

Tablets, windows, portraits, statues, may be utilized, 
many or few, according to the scale of the building and the 
interests of the community, to memorialize those spiritual 
achievements considered to be especially inspiring by the 
particular church. The brilliant new reredos of St. Thomas's 
Church, New York, contains figures of the early political 
heroes of American life as well as saints of the church. This 
is one definite way of putting Man into the church. 

It is perhaps more difficult to express the other great 
present conception of man, the ideal of brotherhood. But it 
must be included in some way. If the theological analogy of 

•240- 



Religious Ideas for the Architect 

God as a father means anything practical, it means that all 
human beings are in some sense children of God, and should 
learn to practice the brotherly life. Everything autocratic 
must come out of the church. It is for the artist to put his 
imagination at work to design something expressive of this 
vigorous, modern conception of the human person. 

As the Eastern Church has stood for the Incarnation, the 
Western Church has stood for Salvation. The church must 
still be a place of refuge, forgiveness, cleansing, healing, and 
joy. It must ever be a place where there is experienced the 
joy of release from failure, shame, injury, and trouble of 
every sort, and the joy of the abundant and creative life. 

In seeking to symbolize these things the architect needs to 
remember some important changes in theology. If it is still 
true that the cross is the great symbol of salvation, it is also 
true that its interpretation is very different from that of 
mediaeval or Reformation faith. The cross is still a symbol 
of the uttermost character of the Divine Love, which may 
become the inspiration and the power of its human imita- 
tion. It is no longer a symbol of something accomplished for 
the believer entirely outside himself, to be appropriated by 
a formal act of faith: but rather of that which must be 
accomplished inside himself and appropriated by imitation 
in the actual life of the practical world. Nowadays it is seen 
that men are saved according as they become saviors. 

Also the life of the world and the character of human 
nature is not now conceived as formerly. We are not saved 
by withdrawal from the world, but by living the divine life 
in it. We are not saved in spite of the flesh, but by under- 
standing and developing the gifts of the bodily powers. 
Salvation, in other words, is positive and not negative. It is 
the developing transformation of human nature. It is the 
living of an abundant life. It is living the productive and 
creative life, and receiving the immediate rewards of such a 
life. It is a life freed from sin and failure by the positive 
spirit of Christ-like good will. 

I do not just now see how the architect can say these 
things in his building. I do believe that as we acquire more 
and more mastery of our new view of life and more and more 

• 241 • 



Art & Religion 

facility of expression there will be discovered appropriate 
forms for celebrating the beauty of nature and of human 
nature, for assuring people of the goodness of life and of 
God, and for assisting the process of their own participation 
in this life. These new forms will not exclude some of the 
old forms. Perhaps they may be only modified manners of 
setting forth the old solution. It is for clergyman and artist 
alike to consider and develop how the church building may 
best serve to help people to the Joy of Salvation. 

These things we have been discussing may be perhaps 
more clearly specified to the artist as Truth, Goodness, and 
Beauty. Modern religion desires to make earnest with all 
these three. It desires to have ever fresh discovery, practice, 
and enjoyment of all these three. It desires constantly to 
minister these to all men. Let the architect do his best to 
build a House of God which men will feel to be open to All 
the Truth, where men may be led to live according to the 
Highest and most Brotherly Goodness, and enabled to enjoy 
the Beauty of the Whole of Life, and he will have been 
most highly successful. 



242 



Chapter XXIV: The Future Church 

THE Reformation age has been marked, amongst 
other things, by the extensive delimitation of the 
functions of the church and widespread specializa- 
tion of social agencies. There was a day when the church 
school was the only school. There was a day when the church 
charity was the only organized charity. There was a day 
when the only drama was the church drama, when the only 
public art museum was the church, when the noblest musical 
productions were those of the church. The Reformation age 
has witnessed the severance of the arts as well as many com- 
munity services from the ecclesiastical institution. 

The new age will be characterized by new integrations. 
The discursive temper of the old age will be greatly modified 
by new popularities and new commonalities. The analytical 
temper of today will give place to the synthetic efforts of 
tomorrow. It is not necessary, economical, or efficient to 
develop too many institutions for the functioning of life. 
Moreover, and vastly more important, it is not good psy- 
chology to divide up the human person and his interests into 
too many categorical expressions. 

I like to think that it may be possible to reunite in the 
church some of its dissevered members, especially in the 
region of the arts. I am definitely hopeful that in some great 
community there can be formed a company of men, some of 
them artists, some of them sociologists, some of them labor- 
ites, some of them patrons of the arts, some of them priests, 
and most of them plain people, who will unite to establish 
a great Community Church — a Church that will in itself be 
a great museum of art, a great music hall, a great scene and 
theater for the pageantry of new representations of life, a 
great school of morals, a great forum of new thought, a great 
expression of brotherhood, a great temple of worship. 

I do not mean to say that any great variety of community 

•243- 



Art & Religion 

organizations ought to be reunited in the church. Yet organ- 
ized religion must ever be one of the chief centers of thought, 
must ever perform certain vital community services, and 
constitutes the only opportunity for the joint expression of 
all the arts. There are some who would set too narrow limits 
to the functioning of the ecclesiastical institution. Perhaps 
there are many who would fear the compressing effect of 
anything placed under the governance of religion. But the 
true religious life is the all -comprehending life. True reli- 
gion never compresses but rather enlarges everything it 
touches. It gathers to itself and fuses in the fires of its own 
supreme experience all discoveries, all purposes, all appre- 
hensions, and then upon all quests and aims and joys it 
throws the illumination of its own great light. 

This play and interplay between historic religion and 
fresh, natural, human experience, just intimated, is precisely 
the thing that will create the church of the new age and 
describe its character. The future religion will not be a 
vague eclecticism. It will be specific, historic Christianity. 
But it will be a Christianity ever freshly tested and ever 
newly enriched by a conscious relation to the categories of 
truth, goodness, and beauty. 

A pagan standard as a test of revealed religion? Partly, 
yet the only standard comportable with a spiritual concep- 
tion of revelation. We are at last face to face with a revived 
demand and possibly with a revived opportunity to do what 
they did in the earliest days of the Christian faith and to do 
it better. 

Into the pagan world went forth the gospel of the Hebrew 
prophet and Christ. But the forms through which the gospel 
was passed on to the later generations were the forms of 
Greek thought and Roman polity. Historic Christianity was 
fashioned by the mergence of Hebraic and pagan elements. 
Retaining great moral and spiritual ideals from their own 
religious heritage, the early Jewish Christians left off their 
allegiance to the Jewish Law. But their disciples were not 
supplied with an adequate intellectual furniture nor an 
adequate practical organization until they met with the 
pagan world. Christian theology very early began to be 

.244- 



The Future Church 

formed to the moulds of Greek thought, and almost as early 
Christian polity was cast into the mould of the Roman 
imperial administration. 

A similar mergence is now required. It is for Catholics and 
also for Protestants to abandon their legalistic character. 
Both are in bondage to the Law, the one to the legalistic con- 
ception of the Church, the other to a legalistic conception of 
the Bible. Retaining the spiritual authority of the historic 
Jesus, the root of specific Christianity must be grafted afresh 
with the new growths of rational, ethical, and artistic faith. 

And this great process ought to be better achieved than 
ever before. What in the former time was accomplished 
largely out of the pressures of practical life, could now be 
done self-consciously and deliberately. We have behind us 
the modern scientific and analytical studies of religion. It is 
now time to transform the academic survey of the psy- 
chology of religion into applied psychology of religion. Only 
a great priest can perform the marriage of naive popular 
religion with critical and rationalized experience. Only a 
great artist can weld the components of historic faith with 
seething, aspiring, naturalistic humanism. 

It has been done before, it can be better done again. The 
materials for a great comprehensive reconstruction are at 
hand, and those who do the work will discover all but 
inexhaustible resources for the task in the world of the Arts 
as well as in the worlds of Science and Reform. This has 
been impossible under the old dualistic view of human 
nature, which afforded no legitimate basis for the fleshly 
appeal of art. The new studies of experience and the newer 
views of nature and of human nature not only constitute a 
sound basis for artistic progress but, vice versa, open the 
gates that the rivers of faith may be freshened from the 
springs of art. 

What is needed, therefore, is not so much a Reformation 
as a new Formation, comparable in comprehensiveness with 
the early formulations of Christianity. The reformers 
thought they could do without forms : we know that we must 
create forms for realizing and propagating our faiths. We 
have been thinking of the new age in contrast with the 

• 245- 



Art & Religion 

Reformation age. If human life is to be successful, possibly 
the next hundred years will rather be of such a character as 
properly to be called the time of the great Formation. 

The Church of the Future will be the Church of the Open 
Mind. We are here interested in this only as it relates to the 
arts and to worship. We have already endeavored to see that 
the artist is not only not inimical to new truth, but that his 
own perennial tendency is to break away from outworn 
ideas. The artist, always seeking new modes of utterance, 
thereby ever transforms the thing that is uttered. And we 
have already sought to appreciate also the aids of art to the 
rationalizing process. Arriving at an apprehension of the 
truth is not wholly a matter of science and philosophy, but 
in part a mystical process. A great art of worship would 
foster a great theology. 

The Future Church will be the Brotherly Church. It will 
not only teach advancing ideals of human relations, but 
practice them. It will not only discuss the problems of right 
and wrong, but call men to definite and sacramental dedica- 
tion to the right. It will resolve the tragedy of culture by 
carrying it forward out of the realm of the mind by a cul- 
ture of the will. A great modern art of worship will not 
merely display a tangible brotherhood realized in the com- 
munion of the saints, but it will fire the resolution of friend- 
ship until the whole community is absorbed in that fellow- 
ship. 

The Church of the Future will be the Church Beautiful. 
It will value and enjoy beauty, any beauty, the beauty of 
anything, the beauty of the whole of life. Most of the artis- 
try used by religion is symbolic in character and classic in 
method. It begins with definite religious concepts and seeks 
to express these ideas in forms of beauty — musical, liturgi- 
cal, architectural, decorative, or ritualistic. The Church of 
the Future will utilize also the romantic method. It will 
value forms of beauty in painting, music, and dramatic 
action not specifically symbolical, but realistic, poetical, or 
lyrical productions. That is to say, it will set forth the one- 
ness of life not only theologically and ethically but also 
aesthetically. 

•246- 




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The Future Church 

What does all this mean practically? Briefly, it means for 
the average church or the small church that it will be fur- 
nished with a beautiful building and supplied with far 
superior materials for all its work and worship. It will be 
assisted to the development of a noble liturgy. It will from 
time to time be visited by superior preachers connected with 
preaching orders. Freed from the burden of much unprofit- 
able sermonizing, the minister will be enabled to improve 
the religious education of the young and of the old and 
more richly perform his priestly and pastoral functions. 

For the extraordinary church in the city, it means a more 
elaborate cathedral organization, where a dean and his 
canons constitute a chapter of specialized clergy. The staff 
will include teachers, preachers, dramatists, musicians, visi- 
tors, directors, and evangelists. The intellectual life will be 
developed from the pulpit as freely as in the past age, much 
more freely in the church school, and more democratically 
in the open forum. Practical service to the community will 
develop according to the needs of differing situations. The 
heart and core of this community service, however, will be 
the pastoral work of good cheer in the homes of people, and 
the personal, priestly ministry of consultation. The public 
worship will be founded upon the normal great ritual 
drama of the spiritual life. Other public exercises will be 
more varied, including great evangelistic appeals, free and 
informal discussions, noble musical presentations, and I 
think also pageants and morality plays in the choir of the 
church. 

We cannot have this Future Church, we cannot have 
church union, we cannot have a new age until we acquire 
a new psychology about practical religion. Nothing is more 
important in this attempt than to reexamine the categorical 
relations of the religious organization in its ordinary con- 
stitution. The background of our consciousness in these mat- 
ters is unnecessarily divided. The mediaeval church, think- 
ing of the minister under the category of the priesthood, has 
never genuinely admitted the prophetic category. The 
Protestant body, thinking of the minister as a prophet, has 
hindered his usefulness in his ordinary capacities by assign- 

• 249- 



Art & Religion 

ing him a role which in the nature of the case is extraordi- 
nary. So also in less sharp contrasts we have spoken of public 
services as "going to meeting," "going to Mass," "going to 
hear Dr. So and So." None of these things is primary. 

The way out of this confused background is the plain 
recognition of the primacy of religion. The religious experi- 
ence is the human experience of the living God. Art is not 
religion, but only the stepping-stone to it. Theology is not 
religion, but only the description of it. Morality is not reli- 
gion, but the resultant issue of it. The culture of the reli- 
gious experience itself is therefore the primary function of 
the practical religious institution. 

If the primary category of religion is the religious experi- 
ence, the primary category in describing the function of the 
church is the Cultus. The public worship of God is the reason 
for the being of the organized church. It does not attempt 
chiefly to provide a cult of ideas as do scientists and phi- 
losophers; nor a cult of ethics as do sociologists; nor a cult 
of beauty as do aesthetes; but the culture of religion, the all- 
embracing life. It is for this primary function that the 
church is chiefly valued, even by the outsider. Entirely 
typical of this estimate is the word of a modern artist and 
philanthropist, Mr. Allen Bartlett Pond. "The pulpit as a 
doctrinaire platform may pass away; creeds may come and 
go; but the church as a house of worship must remain, its 
liturgies and its rituals, purified and refined, voicing for men 
their deepest feelings, their loftiest aspirations, their noblest 
ideals."* 

The Future Church will maintain a great cult of religion 
itself, personal and social, the stabilizing background of 
change in theology and in morals, the great ordinary over 
against which the extraordinary has significance, the under- 
lying being out of which there always flows that which is 
becoming. 

The corporeal character of this great cult, the nature and 
method of its apparatus, will not be that of creedalism, nor 
the personal rousing of hedonistic emotions for their own 
sake, but that of great symbolic acts and objects of beauty. 

* Quoted from the Brick Builder, vol. 8, p. 174. 

•250- 



The Future Church 

This great cult will be administered by priestly officers who 
will organize a scientific school of moral and religious educa- 
tion; keep themselves in readiness for personal consultation; 
devise exercises in public worship, simple and quiet at times, 
at other times brilliant and majestic; and keep open welcome 
to the prophetic voices of the day, whether of scientist, 
reformer, or artist. 

This great cult will be the record and consummation of 
the national ideals, the pictured description of the national 
life, the supreme and harmonized utterance of the voice of 
the age. 

This great cult will be rooted firmly in the primary sensa- 
tional approach to human nature, but it will flower in the 
spiritual and sacramental realization of the divine nature of 
persons. 

This great cult will be housed in a building made with 
hands but which by its very style and tone will intimate 
both the near and far presence of Divinity. 

The time draws near when it should be possible to con- 
struct such a great Cultus, on the one hand freed of authori- 
tative and legalistic formularies; and on the other free, by 
competent technique and the mastery of its joyous forms, to 
spread the influence of the noblest ideals in the social life. 

The Church of the Future will heal the breach between 
religion and the ancient categories of truth, goodness, and 
beauty. Yet the worship of the new age will be not less but 
more religious in spirit, not less but more Christian in essen- 
tial character. If the spur of the scientist is the love of truth, 
the joy of the Christian is the Truth of Love. If the zeal of 
the moralist strives to achieve some association or brother- 
hood of goodness, the joy of the Christian is the Goodness 
of Brotherhood. If the satisfaction of the artist is the life of 
beauty, the joy of the Christian is the Beauty of Life, all 
life, man's life, the Life of God. 



251 



Appendix 

IT would require a volume properly to collate and criti- 
cise in detail the various orders of worship amongst the 
free churches. I am appending therefore only the simple 
orders used in our own church, the regular Ordinary, and the 
order for the celebration of the Lord's Supper. 

The usual Sunday morning order, as will be readily ob- 
served, is very simple. It is designed to follow the course 
of experience as outlined in chapters fifteen and sixteen. 

The Organ Prelude and Processional Hymn are, as sug- 
gested, introductory in character. 

The burden of Presentation is entirely carried by the 
Introit, which for every service has about the character of 
those printed in chapter seventeen. 

The second principal liturgical division, the Prayer of 
Penitence, is the Prayer of Confession taken from the Fifty- 
first Psalm. 

The third element, that of Praise, is chiefly expressed by 
the Anthem. Sometimes a hymn of praise takes its place. 
This note of Praise, that is, the upward swing of the pendu- 
lum of attention, in the swift alternations which so typically 
characterize the mystic experience, is further impressed and 
sustained a little later by the Doxology and the Gloria Patri. 

The definite mental and moral content to be realized and 
readjusted in the experience of Illumination, is suggested in 
the Scripture Readings and pastoral Prayer. The illumined 
outlook is then led to congregational expression in a Confes- 
sion of Faith. Our present material is taken from I John and 
from Romans. 

A definite suggestion of personal Dedication is made in 
connection with the Offertory by a Scripture verse, freshly 
chosen for each service, and by a consecration prayer as the 
offering is received. 

The emotional course is then more or less neutralized by 

• 252 • 



Appendix 

the hymn preceding the sermon, which thus prepares the way 
for fresh attention to the explicit thought of the day. This 
thought has already been prepared for or intimated by the 
Introit, Scriptures, and Prayers. 

Two other items should be mentioned, which indeed are 
extremely important. The little responsive benedictions and 
ejaculations after the prayer of confession, serve to graduate 
the mood between penitence and praise. A brief gradual of 
organ playing leads from the mental interest of the Scrip- 
ture lessons to the reiterated praise of the Doxology. 

The Communion Order is in part about the same. In the 
one herewith published the traditional words were sung in 
the Gloria in Excelsis, Benedictus, Te Deum, Sanctus, 
Agnus Dei and Nunc Dimittis. 

Although most of the prayers are free and extemporane- 
ous, usually the ancient Communion Collect is used at some 
place. Sometimes a traditional prayer is said at the Offertory. 
The Communion Admonition commonly includes the sug- 
gestions contained in the Orate Fratres and Sursum Corda. 
The Prayer of Thanksgiving opens and closes with the 
words of the traditional Preface. 



253 



Order of Worship 

ORGAN PRELUDE 

PROCESSIONAL HYMN 

INTROIT 

PRAYER OF CONFESSION 

Have mercy upon us, God, according to thy loving kindness. 
According to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out our trans- 
gressions. 

Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our 
sin. Against thee have we sinned and done evil in thy sight. 

Create in us clean hearts, God; and renew a right spirit within 
us. Cast us not away from thy presence; And take not thy holy spirit 
from us. 

Restore unto us the joy of thy salvation; And uphold us with thy 
free spirit. — Amen. 

Minister — The Lord be with you. 
People — And with thy spirit. 
Minister — Praise ye the Lord. 
People — The Lord's name be praised. 

ANTHEM 

PRAYER 

SCRIPTURE READING 

THE DOXOLOGY 

CONFESSION OF FAITH 

God is love; and every one that loveth, is born of God, and know- 
eth God. We have beheld and bear witness that the Father hath sent 
the Son to be the Saviour of the world. And this commandment have 
we from him, that he who loveth God. love his brother also. The 
Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God; 
and if children, then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; 
if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with 
him. 

THE GLORIA PATRI 

OFFERTORY 

HYMN 

SERMON 

THE BENEDICTION— The Congregation Seated. 

RECESSIONAL HYMN 

ORGAN POSTLUDE 



254 



Order of Worship for Holy Communion 

ORGAN PRELUDE 

PROCESSIONAL HYMN 

INTROIT 

PRAYER OF CONFESSION 

Have mercy upon us, God, according to thy loving kindness. 
According to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out our trans~ 
gressions. 

Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our 
sin. Against thee have we sinned and done evil in thy sight. 

Create in us clean hearts, God; and renew a right spirit within 
us. Cast us not away from thy presence; And take not thy holy spirit 
from us. 

Restore unto us the joy of thy salvation; And uphold us with thy 
free spirit. — Amen. 

Minister — The Lord be with you. 

People — And with thy spirit. 

Minister — Praise ye the Lord. 

People — The Lord's name be praised. 
ANTHEM— Gloria in Excelsis. 
PRAYER 
EPISTLE 

GRADUAL— Benedictus. 
GOSPEL 

THE DOXOLOGY 
CONFESSION OF FAITH 

God is love; and every one that loveth, is born of God, and know- 
eth God. We have beheld and bear witness that the Father hath sent 
the Son to be the Saviour of the world. And this commandment have 
we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. The 
Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God; 
and if children, then heirs ; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; 
if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with 
him. 

THE GLORIA PATRI 

RECEPTION OF MEMBERS 

ANTHEM— Te Deum. 

SERMON 

OFFERTORY 

COMMUNION ADMONITION 

PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING and SANCTUS 

THE WORDS OF INSTITUTION 

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION and the LORD'S PRAYER 

THE HOLY COMMUNION— Agnus Dei. 

— Nunc Dimittis. 
THE BENEDICTION— The Congregation Seated. 
CHORAL AMEN— Silent Meditation. 

.255. 



Index 



A 



ARON, 99 

Abbaye aux Hommes, 186 
Abydos, 92 

Acropolis, 180, 182 

Adams, Herbert, 11 

Advent, 175 

Adventism, 61 

"Aesthetic," 25, 29, 33 

Agnus Dei, 253 

Aix-la-Chapelle, 185 

Allen, Alexander V. G., 121 

Allen & Collens, 123, 192, 225 
Alps, 186, 190 

Amaziah, 82, 84 

America, 14, 17, 38, 52, 122, 128, 

135, 189, 198 
American, 3, 12, 15, 40, 42, 45, 
66, 73, 114, 120, 127, 128, 200, 
202 
American Academy of De- 
sign, 1 1 
American Architect, The, 186 
American Journal of Theol- 
ogy, The, 1 18 
Ammon Ra, 100 
Amos, 58, 82, 84 
Andover Seminary, 192 
Angelo, Michel, 12, 25 
Anglican, 34, 90, 120, 130, 200 
Anglican Church, 38, 109, 214 
Apocalypse, 61 
"Approaches toward Church 

Unity," 131 

Aquinas, Thomas, 196 

Architectural Record, The, 

7, 190, 196 
Arizona, 9 

Aries, 186 

Arlington, Mass., 230, 231 



"Art and Environment," 

12, 54, 182 
"Art and Ritual," 18 

"Art of Worship, The," 137 
Assyrian, 19 

Asylum Hill Church, Hart- 
ford, 206 
Athens, 13, 180 
Augsburg Confession, 59 
Auvergne, 186 



T) ALDWIN, Simeon, 
X3 Balfour, Arthur, 




34 




27 


Baltimore, Md., 


79> 


192 


Bangkok, 




10 


Baptism, 




102 


Baptist, 14, 41, 


102, 


125 


Baptist Churches, 


i3°> 


215 


Baptistery, Florence, 




93 


Basilican, 




191 


Bellini, 




94 


Benedictus, 




253 


Bennett, C. A., 


30, 


117 


Bethel, 57> 82 


.84 


Bethlehem, 




183 


Bible, 81, 90, 133, 


i57» 


245 


Bohemian, 




130 


"Book of Common Prayer," 


38, 81, 122, 125, 137, 


138 




"Book of Worship o1 


f the 


Church School," 




109 


Bosanquet, Bernard, 




26 


Boston, Mass., 45, 125, 


193^ 


214, 


218, 222, 247 






Bragdon, Claude, 




7 


Bramante, 




190 


Breton, 




97 


Brick Builder, The, 




250 



257 



Index 



Brick Presbyterian Church, 



New York, 




167 


British, 




39 


Brittany, 




7 


Brooklyn, N. Y., 




195 


Browning, 




98 


Brunelleschi, 




190 


Bryn Athyn, Pa., 




192 


Bucer, 




130 


Buddha, 




65 


Buddhist, 




19,65 


Bureau of Architecture, 


233 


"Burghers of Calais," 


97 


Byzantine, 183, 


184, 


185, 189, 


195,. 






Byzantium, 13, 


184, 


196, 199, 


201, 211 







186 



192 
59 
H 

7 

57 

160 



CAEN, 
Calvary Church, Pitts 
burgh, 
Calvinist, 
Cambridge, 

"Can the Church Survive T 
Canaanitish, 
Carthage, 
Catholic, 9, 57, 59, 86, 131, 206, 

245 
Central Church, Boston, 214, 218 
Central Church, Providence, 

197,214 
Central Church, Worcester, 214 
Chaldean, 19 

Chapel of the Intercession, 

New York, 192 

Charlemagne, 7 

Cheshire, Conn., 43 

Chicago, 111., 195, 227 

Chinese, 19 

Christ, 74, 100, 105, 129, 132, 

244 
Christ Church, New Haven, 192 
Christendom, 116, 118, 130 

Christian, 37, 42, 60, 105, 117, 

127, 153, 198, 217, 224 
"Christian Institutions," 121 



Christian Science, 61, 201 

Christian World, The, 120 

Christianity, 35, 39, 69, 114, 127, 

128, 198, 244, 245 
Christmas, 78, 175 

"Christmas in Heaven," 95 

Chrysostom, 62 

"Church at the Cross Roads, 

The," 119 

"Church in the Furnace, 

The," 39 

Church of the Apostles, Sa- 

lonica, 185 

Church of the Chora, Con- 
stantinople, 185 
Church of the Divine Pater- 
nity, New York, 222 
Church of England, 140 
Church of the Holy Apostles, 

Cologne, 186 

Church School, 109, 110, 229, 

.233> 234 
Cicero, 160 

Cistercian, 188 

Civil War, 85 

Classic, 9, 40, 106 

"Classical Heritage of the 

Middle Ages, The," 12 

Classicism, 97, 202 

Cleveland, Ohio, 20, 192, 195 
"Cloud," The, 25 

Coe, George Albert, 109 

Coit, Stanton, 54, 166 

Cologne, 186 

Colonial, 45, 191, 195, 199, 201 
"Community Church, The," 128 
Confiteor, 152, 164 

Congregational, 14, 41, 125, 140 
Congregational Churches, 215, 

221, 223 
Congregational Union of 

Great Britain, 
Congregationalist, The, 
Constantine, 



Constantinople, 

Coptic, 

Corinthians, 



119 

65 
184 

184 

37 
56 



258 



Index 



Cram, Ralph Adams, 7, 191, 195, 

196, 230, 237 
Cram & Ferguson, 193, 247 

Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, 

193, 209, 219, 221 
Croce, Benedetto, 25, 29, 33, 51 



Cross, George E., 

Crouch, 

"Crucifixion," 

DAN, 
Dante, 
Davies, J. W. F., 

Day of Atonement, 
Dearmer, Percy, 



115 

223 

91 

57 

11, 19, 223 

110 

57> 77 

137. 138 



Declaration of Independence, 10 1 
della Seta, Alessandro, 19 

Demeter, 97 

Des Cartes, 180 

Detroit, Mich., 192 

Deuteronomy, 58 

de Wulf, Maurice, 186 

Dexter, Henry Martyn, 140 

Dickenson, Clarence, 167 

Dionysius the Areopagite, 163 
Doric, 182 

Doxology, 156, 160, 176, 252 
"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," 24 

223 
186 
224 

97 



Diirer, Albert, 
Durham Cathedral, 
Dutch, 
"Dying Gaul," 



EASTER, 78, 175 
Eastern Church, 239 
Eckel & Boschen, 19 £ 
Edward VI, 38 
Egyptian, 19, 92 
Elijah, 81 
Elizabeth, Queen, 12, 38 
Elizabethans, 38, 40 
Emerson, 28 
Emmanuel Church, Balti- 
more, 79 
England, 12, 38, 66, 130, 186, 

187, 190 

Englewood, N. J., 221 



English, 9, 38, 65, 130 

Ephraim, 10 

Episcopal, 14, 39, 125, 130, 154, 

192 
Episcopal Church, 38, 122, 137, 

200, 214 
Erasmus, 190 

Erectheum, 182 

Ethical Culture Society, 68 

Eucharist, 103, 162 

Euclid Avenue Presbyterian 

Church, Cleveland, 192 

Europe, 9, 188 

Evanston, 111., 205 

FIJIS, 10 

First Baptist Church, 
Pittsburgh, 21, 23, 192, 

193 
First Church, Boston, 214, 218, 

221 
First Church, Cheshire, 43 

First Congregational Church, 

Montclair, 192, 237 

First Congregational Church, 

Riverside, 195 

First Congregational Church, 

St. Louis, 137 

First Methodist Episcopal 

Church, Evanston, 205 

First Presbyterian Church, 

Englewood, 22 1 

First Presbyterian Church, 

Oakland, 192 

First Presbyterian Church, 

St. Joseph, 195 

Fitch, Rev. Albert Parker, 7 

Flanders, 12 

Flemish, 20 

Florence, 12, 93, 190, 195 

Florentine, 1 1 

"Folkways," 108 

Fortesque, Adrian, 37 

Fourth Presbyterian Church, 

Chicago, 227 

Fra Lippo Lippi, 98 

France, 12, 185, 186, 187, 190 



259 



Index 



"Freedom of the Faith, The," 66 



rreemantle, Archdeacor 

French, 

Frothingham, 


1, 27 

9> 130 
189 


/^ALLICAN, 
VJ Galton, 


37 


108 


Garrett Biblical Institute, 14 


Gelasian, 


37 


General Confession, 


153 


Georgian, 
Germany, 
"Gleaner," The, 


37 ? 199 
186, 190 

97 


"Gleaners," 


97 


Gloria in Excelsis, 
Gloria Patri, 156, 


164, 253 
160, 252 



God, 24, 27, 70, 74, 87, 99, 100, 

101, 102, 103, 117, 129, 144, 

146, 148, 149, 150, 157, 177, 

235, 236, 239 
"Gold, Frankincense and 

Myrrh," 7 

"Golden Calf," 100 

Goodhue, Bertram Grosvenor, 

21, 191, 230, 237 
Gothic, 9, 19, 37, 45, 186, 187, 

188, 191, 192, 196, 197, 199, 

200, 201, 211 
Grand Rapids, Mich., 191 

Graeco-Roman, 196 

Greece, 12, 180, 185, 189, 201 
Greek, 19, 24, 182, 183, 185, 

188, 191, 197, 198, 244 
Greek Church, 34 

Greek Rite, 120 

Greeks, 9, 93, 180, 182 

Gregorian, 37 

Groton School, 192 

HADLEY, Arthur T., 84 
Hall of Fame, 240 

Hamlin, A. D. F., 189, 190, 196 
"Hand of God," The, 51 

"Handbook of Congregation- 
alism," 140 
Harrison, Jane, 18, 30, 77, 103 
Hartford, Conn., 206 



Hartshorne, Hugh, 109 

Hastings, Thomas, 190, 196, 197 
Hebrew, 57, 64, 76, 127, 244 
Heidelberg Catechism, 59, 94 
Hellenic, 182, 184 

Henderson, Charles R., 7 

"Hermes," 93 

"History of Architecture, A," 189 
Hocking, William E., 11, 29, 104 
Holmes, John Haynes, 128 

Holyoke, Mass., 123, 192 

Hopis, 9 

Hosea, 58 

Hospital of the Innocents, 190 
Hotel des Invalides, 190 

House of Hope Presbyterian 

Church, St. Paul, 192,209,222 
"Human Nature and Its Re- 
making," 11,29 
Humanists, 190 
Huss, John, 84 

IFFLEY Church, 186 

International Journal of 
Ethics, The, 30, 117 

International Studio, The, 28 
Introit, 5, 37, 155, 157, 166, 252 
Irving, Sir Henry, 145 

Isaiah, 5, 58, 145, 148 



He de France, 


13 


Israel, 


77 


Italian, 


12, 19* 93 


Italians, 


190 


Italy, 


9> 189 


TACKSON, 
J Jacobean, 


128 


190 


Jacobite, 


37 


Japan, 


16 


Japanese, 


64 


Jehovah, 


57 


Jeremiah, 


84, 127 


Jeroboam, 


57.82 


Jerusalem, 


57. 84 



Jesus, 60, 64, 83, 99, 127, 129 

133. 245 
Jewish, 57, 133, 244 



260- 



Index 



Jews, 


126 


Medinet Habu, 77 


Jones, Inigo, 


190 


Mens Creatrix, 27 


Judea, 


13 


Messianism, 74 


Jumieges, 


186 


Methodist, 14, 78, 125 


Justinian, 


184 


Methodist Episcopal Church, 



KINGDOM of God, 35 

King's Weigh House 
Chapel, London, 118, 122, 

137 
Kioto, 10 

Kirchmayer, I., 79, 95 

Knapp, Rev. Shepherd, 218 

Kyrie Eleison, 153, 155 



"T AST and First, 
A^s Latin, 


5, 


93 


12,37 


>39 


Lenten, 




78 


Leonine, 




37 


Lloyd, Alfred H., 




7 


Lombard, 




195 


Lombardy, 




186 


London, 


20, 190, 


195 


Lord's Prayer, 




156 


Lorenzo de' Medici, 




12 


Lowell Institute, 




186 


Lowrie, Walter, 


l8C, 


222 


Ludlow, William Orr, 198, 236 


Luther, 


58, 83, 


127 


Lutheran, 40, 45, 125, 


214 


TV/TACBETH, 

J.VA Macedonia, 


51» 


H7 




182 


Maclaren, Ian, 




119 


Mainz, 




186 


Mansart, 




4? 


"Manual for Training in 


Worship," 




109 


Mars, 




86 


Mass, The, 37,41, 


58, 70, 


120, 


155, 162 






Massachusetts, 




11 


McAfee, Joseph E., 




129 


McClure, Sir John, 


119, 


120 


"Meaning of Architecture 


, 


The," 10, 12 


i3> 3°. 


198 



125, 215, 233 

Mexican, 19 

Micah, 58 

Michel Angelo, 12, 25 

Middle Ages, 7 

Milan, 185 

Military Chapel, West Point, 

192 
Millet, 97 

Milner- White, Rev. E., 39 

Milton, 19 

Missionary Education Move- 
ment, 46 
"Modern Architecture," 190, 197 
Mohammedanism, 108 
Montclair, N. J., 192, 237 
"Monuments of the Early 

Church," 185, 222 

Moody, Rev. Dwight L., 62 

Moore, Rev. Edward C, 197 
Moorish, 12 

Mosaic, 60 

Mozarabic, 37 

Munger, Rev. Theodore T., 65 
Mycenean, 19 

"Mystic Way, The," 158, 162, 
163, 164 



NEW England, 65, 134, 195 
New Haven, Conn., 78, 91, 
192 
New Testament, 84 

Newton, Mass., 125, 223, 225 
New York, N. Y., 14, 23, 192, 

219, 222, 230, 240 
Nicene Creed, 94 

Nike Apteros, 182 

Nippon, 13 

Norman, 186, 187 

North Church, New Haven, 191 
Norwegian, 130 

Nunc Dimittis, 253 



26l • 



Index 



OAKLAND, Cal., 192 

Oath of the Tennis 

Court, 101 

Oberammergau, 10 

Old Testament, 75, 84 

Olympia, 93 

Omar Khayyam, 61 

Orate Fratres, 253 

Orchard, Rev. W. E., 118, 122, 

136, 138 
"Order for Divine Service, 

The," 136, 137 

Ordinary, 120 

Outlook, The, 53 
"Outlook for Religion, The," 118 

Oxford, 10 



pALADIO, 

X Palm Sunday, 

Panathenaic, 

Pantheon, 


190 
64, 178 

77 
181 


Paris, 

Park, Rev. Charles E., 


190 
218 



Park Avenue Presbyterian 

Church, New York, 221 

Park Street Church, Boston, 191 
Parthenon, 9, 240 

Passover, 100 

Patmore, Coventry, 182, 188 

Patton, Rev. Cornelius H., 65 
Paul, 149, 180 

Pericles, 11, 182 

Perigneux, 185 

Persons, Rev. Frederick T., 199 
Peruvian, 19 

Pharasaic, 59 

Phidian, 182 

Phillipps, Lisle March, 12, 24, 

182, 189 
Phillips, Wendell, 83 

Pisa, 93 

Pisano, Nicola, 93 

Piti Palace, 190 

Pittsburgh, Pa., 21, 23, 192, 193 
Plato, 180 

Plotinus, 149, 180 

Poitou, 186 



Pond, Allen Bartlett, 250 

Pond, Irving K., 10, 12, 13, 30, 

182, 197 
Porter, Mrs. Frank E., 78 

Portland, Me., 126 

Praxiteles, 93 

Prayer Book, 9, 39, 42, 120, 130, 

137 
"Prayers, Ancient and Mod- 
ern," 81 
Presbyterian, 41, 125 
"Presbyterian Book of Wor- 
ship," 137 
Presbyterian Church, 215 
"Principle in Art," 188 
Propylaea, 182 
Protestant, 3, 14, 34, 38, 41, 45, 
71, 103, 117, 119, 130, 131, 
197, 206, 223, 236 
Protestant Episcopal Church, 

38, 122 
Protestantism, 3, 4, 5, 36, 40, 
54, 62, 67, 75, 86, 107, 114, 
126, 132, 197 
Providence, R. I., 197, 214 

Psalms, 53, 58, 136, 153 

Puritan, 40, 64, 134, 202 

Puritans, 40, 223 

"Puritanism in Art," 223 

Puvis de Chavannes, 97 



UAKERS, 



69 



Q 

RAVENNA, 183, 185 

Reformation, 1, 3, 36, 59, 
62, 121, 126, 135, 190, 
197, 241, 243, 245 
Reformed, 41, 45, 125, 130 

Reformed Church, 130, 137, 214, 

223 
Reformed Episcopal Church, 140 
"Religion and Art," 19 

Renaissance, 9, 20, 93, 189, 190, 

191, 195, 196, 197, 199, 201 
"Revolutionary Function of 
the Church, The," 128 



262 • 



Index 



Rheims, 1 1 

Richardson, 45 

Ritter, Waldemar H., 79 

Riverside, Cal., 195 

Rochester Seminary, 117 

Rodin, 51 

Roman, 182, 183, 184, 186, 189, 

190, 191, 195, 244 
Romanist, 37, 101 

Romans, 184 

Roman Catholic, 37, 120, 122, 

126, 129 
Roman Catholic Church, 34, 37, 

38, 130, 195, 197, 214 
Roman Empire, 7, 184 

Romanesque, 185, 186, 191, 195, 

196, 197, 199, 201 
Romantic, 106, 182 

Romanticism, 97, 202 

Rome, 38, 183, 189, 212 

Royden, Maude, 140 

Russell, Bertrand, 92 



SACRAMENTALISM, 97 
St. Agnes's, Cleveland, 20, 

195 

St. Ambrose, Milan, 185 

St. Anne's Chapel, Arlington, 

231 
St. Augustine, 146, 149 

St. Bartholomew's, New 

York, 230 

St. Bernard, 149 

St. Bride's, London, 191 

St. Catherine's, Somerville, 195 
St. Clement's, Chicago, 
St. Front, Periguieux, 
St. Gregory's, Brooklyn, 
St. Irene, Constantinople, 
St. James, 
St. John the Divine, New 

York, 240 

St. Joseph, Mo., 195 

St. Mark, 37 

St. Mark's, Venice, 185 

St. Mary le Bow, London, 191 



195 

185 

195 

185 

37 



St. Mary's of the Lake, Chi- 
cago, 195 
St. Paul, Minn., 192, 209, 222 
St. Paul's, London, 190 
St. Paul's Without the Walls, 

Rome, 183 

"St. Peter," 95 

St. Peter's, Rome, 190,212 

St. Sulpice, Paris, 190 

St. Theresa, 149 

St. Thomas's, New York, 23, 

192, 240 

St. Trophime, Aries, 186 

Sakkara, Egypt, 92 

Salem, Mass., 11 

Salonica, 185 

San Apollinare in Classe, 

Ravenna, 183 

San Apollinare Nuovo, Ra- 
venna, 183 
San Clemente, Rome, 183 
San Lorenzo, Florence, 25, 190, 

195. 
San Pietro, Toscanella, 185 

San Spirito, Florence, 190 

San Vitale, Ravenna, 185, 211 
Sanctus, 253 

Santa Barbara, 9 

Santa Maria Maggiore, 

Rome, 183 

Santa Sophia, Constantinople, 99, 

184 
Saracenic, 9 

Sarum, 37 

Savonarola, 62 

Scopas, 97 

Second Church, Boston, 125, 137, 

193, 195, 221, 247 

Second Church, Newton, 125, 

192, 223, 225 

Seti, 92 

Shakespeare, 9, 20 
Shakespeare, Rev. J. H., 119 

Shelley, 25 

Shintoist, 65 

Siam, 16 

Sistine Madonna, 227 



263 



Inde: 



Skinner Memorial Chapel, 

Holyoke, 123, 192 

Smyth, Rev. Newman, 130, 131 
"Social Theory of Educa- 
tion," 109 
"Social Worship," $$, 166 
Society of Friends, 69 
Socrates, 84 
Solomon, 57 
Somerville, Mass., 195 
South Reformed Church, 

New York, 192, 219, 221 

Southwark Cathedral, 39 

Sowerby, Leo, 168 

Spain, 12 

Spanish, 20, 195, 199 

Sperry, Rev. Willard E., 218 
Speyer, 186, 218 

"Spoon River Anthology," 97 
"Star-Spangled Banner, The," 

Stoicism, 191 

Stone, Arthur J., 141 

Strassburgh, 130 

Sturgis & Frothingham, 189 
Sumner, William Graham, 108 

Sunday School, 107 

"Supper at Emmaus," 79 

Sursum Corda, 253 

Swedenborgian, 192 

Swiss, 130 

Symbolism, 97 

Symonds, J. A., ' 93, 189 

Syria, 183, 185 



TANNHAUSER, 24 
Tauler, 149 
Taylor, Henry Osborne, 12, 182 
Te Deum, 253 
Temple, William, 26 
Thanksgiving, 175 
Thirty-nine Articles, 59 
Thomae, Charles, 95 
"Three Lectures on Aesthe- 
tic," 26 
Tileston, Mary, 81 

•2» 



Torcello, 


185 


Toscanella, 


185 


Trier, 


186 


Troccoli, G., 


141 


Turner, 


24 


Tuscan, 


195 


Tuscany, 


186 


Trinity Church, Boston, 


45 



UNDERHILL, Evelyn, 
156, 162, 163, 164 
Union Church, Winnetka, 125 
Union Seminary, 14, 192 

Unitarian Church, 215 

Unitarian Hymnal, 137 

United States, 38, 41 

Universalist Church, 215 

University of Chicago, 14, 1 14 
Upjohn, 214 

Uzziah, 148, 149 



VALENTINIAN, 183 

Vaughn, Henry, 192 

Venice, 185 

Versailles, 11, 190 

Virgil, 12 

Virgin, 59, 227 



WALKER, Williston, 131 
Washington, D. C, 192 
Wellington Avenue Church, 

Chicago, 168 

Wesley, John, 59, 60 

Wesleyan, 40 

Western Church, 241 

Western Reserve University, 192 
Westminster Cathedral, Lon- 
don, 195 
Westminster Confession, 59 
West Newton, Mass., 192 
West Point, N. Y., 192 
Whitfield, 62 
Whitsuntide, 175 
Williams College Chapel, 192 

64 • 



Index 



Winnetka, 111., 
Woodward, Rev. 

bury, 
Worcester, Mass., 
Wren, Christopher, 



no, 125 
Salis- 

39 

214, 218 

190 



YALE University, 14 

Yewdale, Merton Stark, 28 

rj WINGLI, Ulrich, 58, 190 



265 



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MtOOUTOWN. f* 




•W 



